For Avni, running a startup is like conducting the science experiments she did to obtain her undergraduate degree in chemistry: it’s all about the margin of error. 

On Episode #209, Avni shares the familiar tale of how her career changed when she had children and why being a mom has inspired her — sometimes obsessively so — to build businesses to make parents’ lives easier. 

Tune in to this episode to hear Avni describe how she bounced back after closing Poppy in 2019, how she plans to continue helping families, and her thoughts on assembling her own village to assist with the mammoth task of raising kids. 

Full show notes at https://startupparent.com/209

As women, we're taught that our value lies in being perfect, selfless mothers. But what if there's more to motherhood than martyrdom?

In this episode, Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, founder of Gemma, and Sarah K Peck discuss how to redefine motherhood, overcome mom guilt and prioritize self-care. They explore the intersection of mental health and gender, and how the language of individualism can exonerate poorly designed systems. They also delve into the importance of creating safe spaces for women to have conversations about motherhood. Pooja describes how Gemma is providing a platform for women to redefine wellness and challenge systems of oppression.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine and a psychiatrist specializing in women's mental health. As the founder of Gemma, a digital community focused on women's mental health and equity, she has spent thousands of hours taking care of women who are struggling with burnout, despair, depression, and anxiety. Dr. Lakshmin is a contributor to The New York Times and her work focuses on the intersection of mental health and gender. She is also the author of Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included), which aims to redefine self-care in a way that prioritizes asking ourselves different questions.

Where to find Pooja:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Full show notes at startupparent.com/208

Resources:

Gemma at Website | Twitter | Instagram

Startup Parent | Substack | Sponsor

Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not IncludedWe Don't Need Self-Care, We Need Boundaries.

How Society Has Turned Its Back on Mothers

Saying “No” Is Self-Care for Parents

This episode is sponsored by WWC

This episode includes discussions of suicide and suicidal ideation. While we believe it is important to have open and honest conversations about mental health, we also understand that these discussions can be triggering for some listeners.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. In the US, the number 988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 in English and Spanish.

Si hablas español, llama a 1-888-628-9454. Lifeline ofrece 24/7, gratuitos servicios en español.

#207 – "Being able to see how people operate in their mind and body during a crisis is really important because you get to see how they are coping and then you can offer support and help them work through it," says Michelle Stephens in this powerful conversation with Sarah K Peck.

Have you ever found yourself mentally falling down the side of a mountain, unable to climb back up?

In this emotionally raw episode of the Startup Parent Podcast, host Sarah K. Peck and Dr. Michelle Stephens delve into the dark and difficult topic of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. With vulnerability and empathy, they share personal experiences of sliding down that slippery slope and the importance of seeking help to get back on track.

The conversation also touches on the inadequate resources available for those struggling with mental health issues. They discuss the importance of acknowledging and validating mental health struggles, the challenges of being a parent while dealing with depression, and the value of seeking therapy as a way to cope with life's difficulties. Listen in as they explore these topics with vulnerability, insight, and compassion.

Michelle was inspired to pursue pediatrics when her brother passed away from a congenital heart defect when she was seven. She is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner. Michelle pursued her PhD at UCSF, where she researched early childhood stress physiology and its connection to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and lifetime health. She realized that the single most effective antidote to childhood stress is for children to have intimate relationships with their caregivers, which led her to co-found Oath Care, a community-based healthcare company that supports new parents and families.

Where to find Michelle:

Oath Care | LinkedIn | Twitter

SHOW NOTES

Full show notes at startupparent.com/207

Resources:

Oath Care on Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook

Startup Parent | Substack | Sponsor

How to Go to Therapy

This episode is sponsored by WWC

"When kids experience stress and it's not buffered by a caring adult, the adult and themselves put themselves on a worse health trajectory,” says Dr. Michelle Stephens. “...They're even multiple times more likely to die earlier, like, ten to 20 years earlier."

What if the experiences we have as children shape our health outcomes later in life? Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) have been linked to a range of negative health outcomes, from chronic diseases to mental health issues.

In this episode of the Startup Parent podcast, host Sarah K Peck talks to Dr. Michelle Stephens, co-founder of Oath Care, a community-based healthcare platform that aims to support parents during the critical time of early childhood. Michelle discusses how her experience as a clinician led her to create Oath Care, and how her team is working to address the impact of ACEs on the health of parents and children.

Through a combination of virtual support and in-person care, Michelle believes that Oath Care can help families build resilience and improve health outcomes. Whether you're a parent, a clinician, or someone interested in the intersection of health and technology, this episode offers a fascinating look at the potential of community-based healthcare to transform the way we approach health and wellness.

Dr. Michelle Stephens is a clinician, scientist, and entrepreneur who is passionate about mitigating ACEs. She is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner and earned her PhD in early childhood stress physiology from the University of California, San Francisco. Michelle co-founded Oathcare, a company that provides community-based healthcare to support new parents and reduce childhood stress. Her research has shown that intimate relationships with caregivers are the single most well-understood antidote to childhood stress. Through her work, Michelle is on a mission to change the healthcare system to better support maternal and child health.

Where to find Michelle:

Oath Care | LinkedIn | TwitterResources:

Oath Care on Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook

Startup Parent | Substack | Sponsor

Can’t Even: How Millennials Become the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson

Conscious Leadership Group

This episode is sponsored by WWC

She is also the CEO of Beacon Advisors, a social impact consulting firm, and the founder of the Pink Agenda, a national organization dedicated to raising money for breast cancer research and awareness. With her expertise in grief and loss, Marisa is a sought-after speaker and contributor to various media outlets, including Glamour, Vogue, MSNBC, and The Atlantic. She lives with her husband, son, and dog in the United States.

SHOW NOTES

Full show notes at startupparent.com/204

SHOUT OUT TO OATH CARE, OUR EPISODE SPONSOR:

Are you an exhausted mom trying to get decent fertility, pregnancy, or pediatric support? Oath supports mothers throughout the fertility, pregnancy, and pediatric journey by combining personalized medical advice from a wide array of experts with wisdom from fellow mothers who have been there. Get private care chat and community 24/7. 

Learn more about Oath Care in the Apple App Store or Google Play.

https://www.oathcare.com/

Sometimes I buy them to donate them to a library.

Other times I pretend I'm a book fairy, and I buy copies of books and drop them off at coffee shops to spark conversation and discovery.

I buy them as gifts for friends.

Here's a quick riff on why we should all buy more books.

Jessica Grose is an opinion writer and journalist for The New York Times, a three-time author, and a wife and mother of two. Her first nonfiction book, “Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood” is out December 6, 2022. In it, Jessica dives into the historical background of the unattainable pressures placed on mothers today.

In the episode, we cover:

• The concept of the “ideal mother,” and the historical roots of ideas around motherhood, from the early colonial periods through the centuries up through today.
• How the work of motherhood and the ideal image of motherhood “has remained consistent” where mothers’ contributions are “insincerely praised, ignored, or actively demonized.”
• The myth of the “self-sacrificing mother,” that has to put everyone before herself, and if you don’t, you are transgressing in a major way.
• How the education of children used to be in the father’s realm, but then when it became part of the motherhood realm, it became even easier to blame mothers for all things gone awry, specifically the raising of children.

Tune in to this episode to hear Jessica talk about the historical background of these unattainable pressures placed on women and how mother’s today get more and more added onto their plates.

📌 SHOW NOTES

Full show notes at startupparent.com/201

🤯 ARE YOU A MOM THAT NEEDS MORE SUPPORT?

Shout out to Oath Care, our episode sponsor!

Are you an exhausted mom trying to get decent fertility, pregnancy, or pediatric support? Oath supports mothers throughout the fertility, pregnancy, and pediatric journey by combining personalized medical advice from a wide array of experts with wisdom from fellow mothers who have been there. Get private care chat and community 24/7.

Learn more about Oath Care in the Apple App Store or Google Play.

https://www.oathcare.com/

But what about our not-so-public lives? What about equal partnership in our lives at home?

For many women, there is nothing as maddening as coming home and realizing that there is the second shift and an incredible amount of work that disproportionately falls on your shoulders. For women across the country, this includes the domestic labor of the home, caring for children and all of the maintenance required from invisible labor to mental load. Some would call this emotional labor to the organizational and the logistical work. Well, it’s enough to drive people crazy, or to divorce.

The hardest part is that once children enter the picture, people who believe that they are in equal partnerships often find that women are still the ones that take on the burden of domestic work. 

One of the hardest parts is that fathers will take on a lot more work than their fathers did — up to 35% of the domestic load. Because their workload has increased so dramatically, it's infuriating to be told that you're not doing enough. Yet the data show that women take on 65% of the domestic load in even the best partnerships. And often, when women get divorced, they are happier post-divorce than men.

On this episode, originally aired in 2019, we invited Darcy Lockman on the show to talk about the unequal load at home. Darcy is a former journalist turned clinical psychologist and the author of a book called All The Rage: Men, Women and the Myth of Equal Partnership. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Psychology Today and Rolling Stone, among others. She lives with her husband and children in Queens. 

She joins us to talk about where the breakdown in equal partnership is most apparent, and why parenting tends to throw a wrench in most couples’ plans for equality.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://startupparent.com/119

STARTUP PARENT NEWSLETTER: https://startupparent.com/newsletter

THE WISE WOMEN'S COUNCIL: https://startupparent.com/wwc

FOUNDERS WITH KIDS: https://startupparent.com/founderswithkids

Becoming a mother—even thinking about becoming one—involves complex feelings and emotions. But the “Bliss Myth” idea says that we should feel one note about becoming a parent, and that note is happiness and joy.

If we don’t feel joy, and we don’t love motherhood, then are you a bad mom?

No! It’s totally normal to feel a huge range of feelings, including ambivalence, anger, regret, disappointment, love, tenderness, exhaustion, frustration, and more. Having feelings, especially multiple conflicting feelings, doesn’t make you a bad mom: it makes you a human being, like the rest of us.

Alexandra Sacks, MD is a reproductive psychiatrist who popularized the concept of matrescence, or the period of transition surrounding becoming a mother. Her 2018 TED Talk reached 1.5 million views worldwide, and she wrote a New York Times article called The Birth Of A Mother that was the number one most read piece of 2017 for the Well Family Section.

The truth is more complicated, and Dr. Sacks says a huge range of feelings about motherhood is all totally normal. Things like panicking when you find out that you’re pregnant, or feeling ambivalent at first when you see your newborn, or having new feelings about your partner or your own parents are all absolutely reasonable feelings to have during your pregnancy and parenting journeys.

In this episode, we talk to one of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists about the range of emotions and feelings that come with motherhood, and why matrescence is totally natural and normal.

In this episode we talk about:

• Matrescence as an extended phase of all women’s lives, including women who choose not to have children or who experience infertility, and Dr. Sacks focused work on the period of pregnancy and the first year of motherhood.
• The Bliss Myth and other honest stories we’re missing about motherhood.
• The harmful trope of the “bad mother” as the cornerstone of evil characters in myth and popular culture.
• The idea of the “Good Enough Mother” as permission and guiding light for mother’s overwhelmed by messages of perfection; that we should aim for not superhuman perfection but providing a safe, stable, loving childhood.
• How being a “perfect” mother can actually harm our children in the long term, leading to decreased resiliency, slowing the learning process, and interfering with children’s ability to grow and achieve independence.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://startupparent.com/110

STARTUP PARENT NEWSLETTER: https://startupparent.com/newsletter

THE WISE WOMEN'S COUNCIL: https://startupparent.com/wwc

The problem with conventional policy and food guidelines for pregnant women can be summed up like this: the current recommendations for prenatal nutrition were estimates based on men’s bodies, not women’s. Early nutrition recommendations were adjusted mathematically for a smaller frame—and then modified again to account for fetal growth.

This is… not great.

In this interview (originally aired in 2018), Lily shares how she put these books together: she reviewed 934 studies on food and health, as well as her successful pilot programs that helped people cut gestational diabetes by half.

Plus, we talk about the entrepreneurial path Lily took in her own life, how she figured out a “pieced together” childcare plan while writing her books, and why she decided to become an entrepreneur.

This interview originally aired in April 2018.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://startupparent.com/043

STARTUP PARENT NEWSLETTER: https://startupparent.com/newsletter

THE WISE WOMEN'S COUNCIL: https://startupparent.com/wwc

DAD'S GROUP: https://startupparent.com/dads

Getting pregnant means entering into a world of advice and fear about all the things that could potentially go wrong.

But what does the data say? Are these “pregnancy rules” based on truth or myth?

When economist Emily Oster got pregnant, she also got curious about the advice she was getting. Some recommendations were based on her age alone, and sometimes she found it difficult to get any answers at all. So, she started digging into the data.

Eventually, Emily’s research became Expecting Better: Why Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know, a book about how to make your own decisions, the things that matter most when it comes to pregnancy, and why it’s not so easy as just making blanket rules for everyone.

Emily Oster is a highly-respected economist and professor at Brown University. Her research interests range from development and health economics to research design and experimental methodology. Emily’s work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the bestseller SuperFreakonomics, and FiveThirtyEight, and more.

This interview originally aired in October 2019.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://startupparent.com/080

STARTUP PARENT NEWSLETTER: https://startupparent.com/newsletter

THE WISE WOMEN'S COUNCIL: https://startupparent.com/wwc

DAD'S GROUP: https://startupparent.com/dads

Young girls and women are often taught about menstrual cycles in relationship to two things: periods and pregnancy.

That is, don't get pregnant! And also, periods are gross. 

This is such limited and almost useless information that doesn't support overall health and wellbeing. Plus, pills are often prescribed as a blanket solution to fix irregular cycles, alter heavy periods, or manage symptoms. 

Then, many women are flummoxed when they come off the pill after years or decades of use to find the old problems return immediately. The symptoms are only hidden by the regulating power of the pill, not resolved.

In this episode, we look back at our conversation from Episode #108 with Lisa Hendrickson-Jack where we talk about fertility, menstruation, and the vital signs of our bodies.

Lisa is the author of The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility. She is a certified fertility awareness educator and a holistic reproductive health practitioner. She teaches women how to chart their menstrual cycles for natural birth control, for conception and for monitoring your overall health. Her book, The Fifth Vital Sign is all about why your cycle is one of your vital signs in your body if you are a woman and how it can play a powerful tool in diagnosing and healing our bodies.

In this episode we talk about: 

• Optimizing your fertility as the gateway to healing your body.
• Being a medical advocate for yourself: why it’s extremely difficult and also crucial to your long-term well-being. 
• The idea that in any examining room there are two experts: the doctor, who is the expert in a field of medicine, and the patient, who is the expert in their body and their experience. 
• How a family history of painful periods, fibroids, and hysterectomies led her to seek out cycle charting from an early age.
• Lisa debunks the myth that regular ovulation is only important when you want children, because we need to recognize that the menstrual cycle is part of our entire biology and physiology. She presents an evidence-based approach to fertility awareness and menstrual cycle optimization. 
• How the body is seen as low—base, even!—and unpredictable. That means that men and women have been culturally conditioned not to experience life through our bodies. This becomes a bigger problem for birthing and postpartum women, who can experience the trauma of birth itself and then can compound that damage by feeling like they can’t or shouldn’t listen to their bodies reaction to trauma in the wake of birth. 

By only revisiting our cycles when we decide to try to conceive, we miss out on the opportunity to come into deep understanding with our bodies and to heal ourselves rather than mask symptoms. Today, we get to talk to Lisa Hendrickson-Jack about how in taking the time to chart, learn about and understand our cycles, we can not only optimize our fertility but gain crucial information about our bodies. Join us as we talk about the menstrual cycle, fertility, and the opportunities we all have to learn more about our bodies simply by paying closer attention to them.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://startupparent.com/108

STARTUP PARENT NEWSLETTER: https://startupparent.com/newsletter

THE WISE WOMEN'S COUNCIL: https://startupparent.com/wwc

Over the past five years, we’ve built a leadership incubator for women navigating both business and parenting. What started as a small group circle has blossomed into an incredible program for mid-career and executive women navigating the next moves in their lives.

“This is a landing place of brilliance amongst the chaotic backdrop of parenting and working,” alumni Alicia Jabbar described it. “I loved everything about the program. SKP is brilliant at holding space, providing sparks for connections, and letting go of any attachment of a plan in service of meeting the group where they are and what they are needing.”

“I was surprised at how deeply I got to know these women over the course of the year,” another alumni, Lee Price said. “ I found companionship, friendship, business support, cheerleaders, and new ideas. I tell so many people now that they should join WWC!”

When I built Startup Parent, I began by interviewing hundreds of women for the podcast, and then later for our leadership programs. What I heard from hundreds of women was how unbelievably lonely it was to be at the intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship AND parenting. As a mom, it felt isolating to be juggling both work and career, and finding time to meet other parents in a similar space felt next to impossible.

So we set out to help these tired moms make friends.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How the program is structured, and our rhythm of learning.
• What we do differently than other leadership incubators.
• Why people keep coming back year over year.
• A sneak peek at some of the guest teachers we invite.
• What our alumni are saying about the program.

If you're looking to join a supportive, expansive, brilliant group of women founders, leaders & business creatives, then check out The Wise Women's Council.

We only open a few weeks each year for new members to join.⁠

Applications close March 1, 2022 this year. Apply at startupparent.com/wwc

Last year's Wise Women's Council was amazing. Full stop. Here's what some of our alumni have said:

"It made me feel seen and less alone."⁠

"What I didn't expect was just how expansive WWC was for me. The people I met, what I learned both about myself and the world – it truly expanded what I thought was possible about working parenthood."⁠

"WWC brings these incredible women together, and you form relationships over 9 months that approximate the closeness of many-years-long friendships. You learn things about yourself that you didn't know before. You unlock ways of understanding the world outside of where you were before"⁠

"There is no way to describe what it feels like to be validated. So much of being a women and more so a mom makes one feel invisible. In this space I felt seen and heard by really smart, funny, and fearless parents."⁠
⁠
👆 THIS is what the alumni from WWC have said about what The Wise Women's Council is like. I didn't edit their words or tell them what to say.
⁠
If you're looking to join a supportive, expansive, brilliant group of women founders, leaders & business creatives, then check out The Wise Women's Council. We only open once a year for applications to join.⁠

APPLY HERE → www.startupparent.com/wwc⁠

📌 Our application deadline is March 1, 2022. 

The program runs March 28 - Nov 3, 2022.

An author, speaker, and lead investigator with Science of People, Vanessa first appeared on Episode #96 of Startup Parent. She returned for Episode #104, in which she busted some myths about the first weeks of parenthood.

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.

We also talk about miscarriage, and Vanessa also speaks honestly about the experience of having a miscarriage at eight weeks, and the physicality of it—many people talk about the emotional experience, but she wasn’t prepared for how long it would take, and what her body would go through in the experience.

Tune in to this episode to hear Vanessa’s take on what the first year of parenting was like for her, how it affected her perspective on work and friendships, and also how the pandemic (and parenting) might also be an opportunity for a fresh start.

Episodes mentioned: 

• Episode #96, our first interview with Vanessa on Startup Parent. 
• Episode #104, in which she busted some myths about the first weeks of parenthood.

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.

Full show notes at startupparent.com/184

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).

Full show notes at startupparent.com/183

In this episode, we talk about: 

• How to help little ones manage their emotional and mental understanding of all that's changed — and specific tools for how to talk to our kids across age groups.
• How to help parents deal with all of the stress and life changes that are happening.
• Stress strategies for dealing with the coming months and not calling it "new normal" but really naming what it is and what's happening.
• The grief and loss that's happening in so many different ways in our homes, including the loss of income, work, career, meaning, purpose, and time.
• How to talk to kids about loss and grief.
• The 6 P's framework she has for recentering and adjusting as a parent.

Also, because we're in a pandemic, you'll hear our kids in the background, and we have to move offices to make this interview work. This was recorded at the end of last summer, but like the music, better late than never.

Browse all episodes at startupparent.com/podcast or check out the complete show notes at startupparent.com/182

If you haven't heard the story of how the Wise Women's Council started, listen in as Sarah describes what it took to create a program while pregnant with her second kiddo (and with a toddler at home). Business as usual wouldn't work, so she thought differently about what a mastermind community might look like, and how to bring a network of teachers in so that she could run a program while also taking leave in the middle of her own program.

In this episode:

• How too much ego can get you into trouble if you design a business where you (and your personality) has to be at the center of the business.
• How we are scaling the Wise Women's Council and what it looks like to grow a program and a community while maintaining intimacy.
• The container and the structure set-up, and the work it takes, to create truly intimate and honest conversational space.
• What many business owners miss when trying to create strong communities.
• Some of the lessons learned from running masterminds, retreats, and events for over a decade, and how to create a great program and experience.

This episode is a casual conversation with lots of sideways chatter and banter between long-term friends Cary and Sarah. We also have episodes with guest experts and speakers, but this one includes everything that friends talk about (including adult language), so listen with headphones if you have kids around.

Browse all episodes at startupparent.com/podcast or check out the complete show notes at startupparent.com/181

It's been so long since I've been able to sit down and put together a real podcast that I almost feel like I've forgotten how to do it. I invited Cary Fortin to join me as we talk about what the last year has been like and how we're finding our footing again. Cary was my guest co-host from the original Friendship Series (Episodes 81 through 86 for longtime listeners), is a dear friend, and has been my go-to pandemic buddy as we talk (and rage, and vent) about the events of the last year. She joined today to help me talk through some of what we've been through in the last year.

Browse all episodes at startupparent.com/podcast or check out the complete show notes at startupparent.com/180

In this episode, I'm diving into the nuances of the program: how I've designed it, what parts of past mastermind programs I've used, why I changed the structure to better fit the lives of working parents, and the research behind why I've made the program the way it is. Over the last few weeks I have been interviewing, talking, laughing, and even crying with so many of you during our interviews and gathering calls, and I'm looking forward to spending the year ahead with so many of you. If you've been thinking about applying to join us, if you've never heard of the program before, or you're watching along, listening and learning (I see you! I do this, too), this episode is about what the program is for, how I've designed it, and the program goals we have for the women & womxn who join us.

Apply to join us in the year ahead: www.startupparent.com/wwc

Shani joined us last year in The Wise Women's Council when she was pregnant with her little one, who you will hear and enjoy in the background of this recording. I asked her if she'd join us to talk about what WWC was like for her navigating pregnancy, childbirth, and growing in-person business practice, and a pandemic.

For all of you curious or thinking about the Wise Women's Council i'm doing a short series here on the podcast with folks who went through the program last year (look for Episodes #176 through #181). If you're interested in joining us in 2021, head to startupparent.com/wwc to find out more about the program and submit an application to join us. Leadership doesn't have to look like what we see around us. Leadership can be messy and it's our job, as women, as people carving out a new future, to chart a new path of leadership that might not look like the masculine models we've been steeped in so far.

Show notes: startupparent.com/177

The Wise Women's Council: startupparent.com/wwc

Jess joined us in the 2020 Wise Women's Council, and I asked her if she would be open to sharing her story and experience on the podcast, and share some insights into what it's like to be in the Wise Women's Council, why she chose the Group Coaching level, and what she got out of the experience.

If you're thinking about applying to join us in the Class of 2021, submit your application at startupparent.com/wwc. Applications are open until February 15, 2021, and we start together in March.

If you'd like to hear a fascinating conversation about parenting, gender, and what we can do as parents to help reduce gender violence, oppression against women and men, and create a more playful world, come join us on this episode of the podcast.

Full show notes, references, quotes, and sponsor details are available at startupparent.com/174

She realized that American society saw motherhood through a white lens, and that there would be no easy understanding or acceptance of the kind of family she hoped to build. She is the author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America, which went on to become an Amazon bestseller.

Nefertiti Austin joins us on the show to talk about motherhood, race, adoption, and the white lens that is applied to motherhood stories in America, and more broadly, in Western cultures today. We talk about being a single mom and her journey from being a law student to becoming a fiction writer to today, her career in nonfiction writing and publishing. We dig into the mistruths around what's told about being a single mom, adoption, and blackness.

For full show notes, episode sponsors, and quotes, go to www.startupparent.com/173

Full show notes will be available at startupparent.com/172 

Last week, Lions + Tigers, spearheaded by Brea Starmer, gathered a panel to talk about specific steps parents can take to strategically plan ahead for the last quarter of the year, what to do to advocate for yourself as a working parent, the option parents have with schools and how you can think about creating a 'micro school' to get childcare set up in areas where remote schools aren't feasible, and how to navigate and set up your workplaces to be more compatible with the working parents in your organization.

I was lucky enough to be able to host this panel, so I got to interview some talented experts all about all of these questions. Joining me on the panel were Shauna Causey of Weekdays, Blessing Adesiyan of Mother Honestly, and Brea Starmer of Lions + Tigers.

Full show notes at www.startupparent.com/171 

Here's what's happening in my brain and mind, and how I'm seeing the effects of all of these stressors play out in my own life. (Hint: it took me an extra six takes to record this episode.) 

If you're feeling this way, you're not alone. This is a struggle, and I've got a few tips for you to stay compassionate to yourself and help make all this stress just a little bit lighter.

Tiffany Dufu is here to burst the bubble of stressed-out mothers everywhere to talk about the reality of being a working parent. The author of "Drop The Ball," Tiffany's life and work is focused on leadership for women and girls. She's been named to Fast Company's League of Extraordinary Women, serves on the board for Girls Who Code, and is now the founder of TheCru, a networking and peer-to-peer group creator for people who need a cru.

This interview was first recorded in 2017, but her message to ladies everywhere is more relevant than ever. It's time to drop the ball and really, really lower our expectations. Don't do the things that don't matter. I'll share a personal story: We didn't dress our kiddos in real clothes this whole summer. We just went with pajamas straight from day to night.

For full show notes, sponsor information, and listener perks, go to startupparent.com/169.

In 2017, we had Sarah Lacy, founder of Chairman Mom, previously the founder of Pando Daily and a journalist in tech, talk about her journey from thinking sexism was not really a thing to fierce feminist. Today, we're revisiting that conversation and taking a listen to how the world of work is extremely biased against women, especially mothers, and how many ways we've made the world of work (and parenting) harder on women. We're going to dig into why the patriarchy—aka men, especially white men at the mantle of an unequal power structure—is so bad, and why it's not okay to set up a system where some people live at the expense of other people's lives and rights. That's not okay. Join me as I go back and take a listen to this powerful episode.

This episode is brought to you by Nanit, the only baby monitor you need.

For full show notes, sponsor information, and listener perks, go to startupparent.com/168.

This episode was originally published in 2018, but we're re-broadcasting it because it's been one of our best-ever episodes, downloaded more than almost any other. Enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Splendid Spoon, a meal delivery service that creates whole, healthy, plant-based soups and smoothies.

For full show notes, go to startupparent.com/167.

This episode is brought to you by Nanit, the only baby monitor you need.

For full show notes, go to startupparent.com/166.

For the first episode of our best-of series, we're revisiting our podcast's very first interview (#002). This conversation about flexibility in the workplace, though, takes on new meaning right now. As we continue to blend work and motherhood amid this pandemic, the reality that today's workplace fails women and families on a regular basis grows ever more glaring. 

In this episode, we hear from Annie Dean, then-co-CEO of Werk, a people-analytics platform on a mission to update company policies to reflect modern realities. She walks us through her realization that the 16-hour workdays and overnight travel she'd been so used to putting in pre-pregnancy were simply incompatible with her new role as a mother. In short, she faced a forced choice between career and care. 

She saw how ambitious, high-performing women like herself were opting out of leadership pipelines — and out of the workforce, altogether — and it didn't make sense. By introducing low-cost, high-impact options for flexibility in the workplace, employers could hold onto this talent, all while increasing productivity, retention, and engagement across the entire team. 

For too long, the idea of flexibility has been poorly defined and deemed a burden. The objectives of the employer and the needs of the employee don't have to be at odds, though. Annie predicts that companies eager to treat flexibility as a key strategic component will win the war on talent because they're dealing in a new currency their competitors are too afraid to embrace.

This episode is brought to you by Nanit, the only baby monitor you need.

For full show notes, go to startupparent.com/165.

Every year I take a short sabbatical in August, and this year we're going to try to do a version of this, except we don't have childcare and there is so much uncertainty. 

This year, the sabbatical looks like a brief break from the podcast, a short hiatus from the newsletters, and a few more slow-downs while we try to regroup as a family. Also, I'll update you on our move (we're moving!) and I've got an exciting announcement about the direction of Startup Pregnant and where we're going next.

She gives us an honest accounting of how much work motherhood takes, and how many people it takes to run her business and her team while at the helm of a 30-person award-winning digital strategy organization while also having a one-year old at home.

She has been named the “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur Magazine and the “Millennial Master of the Universe” by Fast Company. Shama has also been honored at both the White House and The United Nations as one of the top 100 young entrepreneurs in the country.

As the CEO of Zen Media, she and her team help both B2B and B2C brands to make meaningful connections with the modern-day customer via influencer marketing, experiential and digital storytelling — and then turning those into bottom line results.

In this conversation, we talk about how she got her start in business at the rise of social media. At that time major companies weren't paying attention—so she started her own company focused on the power of moments in galvanizing media attention.

She also tells us honestly about her experience of motherhood and parenting, including:

• How it took a while for her to really fall in love with her kiddo and get to know them—it wasn't an instantaneous jolt, like she thought it would be.
• She's always been a night owl, working late and sleeping in late. Children? They get up early. After a few months with her newborn, she and her husband decided to figure out a way to make it so that they could still do do the night work they prefer. Today, they have a nanny who comes in at 7am and they (the parents) sleep in until 11am most days and work late, keeping their night owl schedules.
• Her plans for maternity leave, what she expected to do, what actually happened, and why there were differences.
• How she thinks about social media and content creation, and how she batches and repurposes things to get the most leverage for her online work.

Get the show notes and episode sponsor at startuppregnant.com/164

For many of you reading this blog and listening to the podcast, you have also been trying to figure out your birth plans. How do you give birth in a pandemic? What do you plan for, when everything keeps changing?

Giving birth in a pandemic

It seems that every week, the guidelines are changing. The stress on birthing mothers and parents is unparalleled. So many of you are figuring all of this out in real time, and I know it's nothing like what you'd hoped for or planned for. Many of you are also wondering if now is still a good time to get pregnant and whether your family plans still make sense. All of us are still asking: what will this year bring?

All of this reminded me of a friend of mine, whose story I heard about last year. She went through a challenging birth situation that in some ways, parallels what people are going through now. No, she didn't give birth in a pandemic—but she did have her family get the flu the week before her due  and she had to be quarantined from her mother, her husband, and her little son and figure out how to give birth without the two people she wanted to be in the room with her. Today we get to meet Megan Hale and hear her story.

For full show notes, episode sponsors, and quotes: 

www.startuppregnant.com/162

This episode is a very detailed, behind-the-scenes look at both of our online programs and how we've designed our mastermind communities.

Tara McMullin runs What Works, a podcast, community, and network for small business owners. She has three different levels of her community program, and in this episode, we both walk you through the pricing, offering, and design of the programs and how we've set them up.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What masterminds are for, and who joins them.
• The invisible role of the facilitator, and the specific tools and structures we both use to design for better connection and depth.
• Why it's less about having "the right answer" delivered to you by an expert or a leader, and more about having people ask you the right questions, and follow-up with you to see why you're not doing the work you say you want to be doing.
• Why it's so hard as a small business owner to find people like you, to challenge you, to inspire you, and to truly support you in your vision of what you're trying to build.
• How we structure our sessions and our weeks for the best support and outcomes.

Other resources: 

• What Works Episode 134
• What Works Episode 279
• Startup Pregnant Episode 37

Full show notes: visit startuppregnant.com/161 for all the quotes, excerpts, and sponsors for this episode

You all have been asking to hear how other moms and small business owners are navigating the pandemic right now. I’ve been interviewing working parents about how they’ve been affected by the pandemic. Today we take a look at Kelsey Kerslake, the founder of Pinegate Road. She runs a design agency as well as a coaching business, and has a young kiddo at home. Her husband is an essential worker, so she hasn't had a minute of childcare or backup help throughout all of this.

A year ago, Kelsey became a mom for the first time. Today, we talk about her experience getting pregnant, the challenges with IVF, dealing with postpartum depression, getting support as a new parent, and finding her rhythm as a business owner who adores working and loves her job. Then, we dive into how the pandemic has shifted her work schedule and what's changed—and how she's dealing with it all.

In this episode:

• The signs and clues of postpartum depression, and how she and her doctor talked about recovery.
• How she wished she'd prepared for motherhood and the postpartum period, knowing what she knows now.
• The breath work practice she learned before having kids, and how she leaned on the breath and bodywork to help with some of the most intense experiences of early motherhood.
• What a day in the life of the business looked like pre-pandemic, and how she's shifted her schedule and work around now that her time is extremely limited.
• How long it took to build the business, how much money she started with, and what the financial picture looks like today.

Show notes, episode sponsor, and quotes all at startuppregnant.com/160

For me, I avoid them. I panic. I worry. I stress. I get really sweaty. I get nervous. I stammer. I try to keep the peace. There are so many strategies I have to try to avoid having hard conversations, or try to avoid ruffling any feathers and those strategies don't necessarily serve me. The stakes get high, people get frustrated. Sometimes when you do end up having them, you both lose sight of what it was that you wanted in the first place, or you win, but you don't really feel you won, because what is winning?

Today on the podcast, we get to have Sharon Stolt join us to teach us what to do and how to start the art of having challenging and uncomfortable conversations. Sharon Stolt is a global learning and development leader, a dynamic facilitator and an instructional designer specializing in leadership and manager development. 

She has taught and designed innovative training programs for Fortune 500 companies and small startups and she helps thousands of people communicate better and lead more effectively. She takes us through how to think about having hard conversations, how to frame them, what our goals and objectives should be, and how to keep learning throughout all of them. When you improve your ability to communicate and navigate hard conversations, you'll be a better leader, a better parent, and you'll be a better advocate. Join us for this important conversation.

Thanks to our episode sponsor, NANIT — the only baby monitor you'll ever need! The Nanit Plus Smart Baby Monitor tracks your baby’s breathing, and has special sleepwear so that you can see that they are safe and know that they are breathing throughout their sleep. If you’ve ever been stressed out overnight or worried about your baby sleeping, this can put your mind at ease, this is a baby monitor that can help you adjust to your new sleep life once you bring that kiddo home. They also provide sleep coaching, training, and a baby monitor all in one. Visit Nanit.com today to learn more about this amazing baby monitor, why people are raving about it, and how it can help you and your little one have a better night’s rest. Startup Pregnant listeners can use code STARTUP at nanit.com to save 10%.

Find links, resources, quotes, and complete shownotes at https://startuppregnant.com/158

Consider this an unofficial, scrappy overview of Potty Training that will help you do a good enough job ... for now. The best thing I can recommend is to read the "Oh, Crap" Potty Training book (it was relatively painless to read and well organized and laid out) and then take it slower than anyone else says it should take because it's really all about your kid and getting to know them and their potty (and learning) styles. My favorite part about the potty training experience was that you really have a chance to get to know your kid and understand how they learn and process. But it's tough! 

Here's what I learned and what I remember about potty training.

Show notes available at https://startuppregnant.com/157

Today's episode is for anyone trying to find a semblance of sanity amidst all of this. If you're stuck, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like you're in a rut—here are a few things that are working for me. Hope they are helpful.

Show notes are available at startuppregnant.com/156.

Want to know how we're breaking down our workdays and figuring out our schedules? I break down the exact schedules I'm using with my partner, who works when (and why), and how much work we're really able to get done. (Hint: not a ton.)

Also, I'll share my thoughts on equality in partnerships, why specificity is so important, and why my business is able to handle seasonal fluctuations right now, which is keeping us afloat.

Full show notes at https://startuppregnant.com/153

PS: Want to share your story on the podcast? I'm looking for the nitty-gritty details of how you're living life in quarantine and what changes you've made as working parents. Send a note to hello@startuppregnant.com if you're able to be interviewed by 5/15/2020. 

Lately the strangest thing has been happening: I'm finding myself drawn towards social media, and wanting to connect more. So every morning, I've been sharing a small snippet of my morning routine on my Facebook page, and it's turned into my virtual coffee shop. Listen in for how it all works, and why it's helping me so much right now.

SHOW NOTES: 

www.startuppregnant.com/152

Some of my favorite “cues” are things that happen every day at the same time, that have a sensory component to them, and that remind me of something familiar. For this reason, perfume, coffee, candles, and lipstick all help remind me that yes, I’m a human, and yes, I might be able to do a little bit of stuff today.

SHOW NOTES 

www.startuppregnant.com/151

In this episode, I'll share a few more tiny habits I'm using to anchor me throughout this. Would love to hear what you are up to! I've left voice notes on this episode and you can share your habits in our Startup Pregnant Facebook Group.

In times of uncertainty, it's useful—and supportive—to create small moments of ritual and stability, both for ourselves and for the people around us. Here in New York City, my husband and I are leaning on a small ritual practice we usually do each night before bed. Right before we go to bed, we ask three questions:

1. What was the best part of your day?

2. What are you grateful for?

3. What are you looking forward to in our family?

In this episode, I share a few of the rituals we use and how it can serve as an anchor to help you make sense of an otherwise upside-down day. For all of you out there, consider creating small rituals that will help you get through your new normal. They don't have to be perfect, and they don't have to be forever.

Also, pick a couple of things that you have on your calendar to look forward to. Having a moment, an event, or a reason to stay positive and hopeful is also an excellent strategy. However—as I explain on the podcast—don't go too hog wild with it. Creating unreasonable expectations can set us up for disappointment, so, if you're a leader in your field, make sure to pick things to look forward to that you can be confident will come to pass. Leaders can do a disservice to the people around them by telling false stories about the future, but having something to anchor your hopes to, even if it’s small, can help boost morale during challenging times.

Whether it's for you, your family, or your company, create small rituals that help you get through your new normal. Pick a few things to look forward to, even if they are small—just make sure they are within your control and not subject to wild external forces. 

RESOURCES:

Full show notes are available at www.startuppregnant.com/149

This is another brief(ish) episode recorded from our studio in New York City during the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of this recording, my family and I are in self-isolation in New York City and we have not left the apartment in 14 days. It’s been interesting, to say the least! You will hear noises of my children in the background, and yes, there are times when I completely lose my train of thought. This is the new normal right now, and I’m right there alongside all of you.

If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, fatigued, panicked, irritated, inspired, or like you need to crack inappropriate jokes, you’re not alone. Feelings are big right now and get magnified during times of stress. A few tips on dealing with feelings are:

• Listen to them and acknowledge them. Know that they don’t want to stay forever, they just want to be heard right now.
• Describe your feelings as physical symptoms—describe where they are in your body and what your body does with those feelings.
• Start a journaling practice—it can be so incredibly soothing and helpful for the mind.
• Try a body scan meditation.

Most of all, know that your feelings are a normal reaction to stress and that you don’t have to DO anything right now to get rid of them. You can simply feel them and seek to understand them.

RESOURCES:

Show notes for this episode can be found at startuppregnant.com/148 

Beautiful and important article on grief and discomfort from Harvard Business Review: That Discomfort You're Feeling Is Grief.

This episode was recorded on Saturday, March 21st 2020 in New York City in the midst of the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic happening around the world. But that's not the focus of the episode—the point of. this short moment is to breathe, together. I'll walk you through one of my favorite practices that I use when I'm tired, anxious, or stressed. It's a pattern of breath called 4-7-8. Please note: if you're currently pregnant or think you might be, be mindful to do the breath work without the retention (holding), and tune into your body as you do it to see how it feels for you.

Sending you all a big, virtual hug. 

SHOW NOTES and other resources can be found at startuppregnant.com/147

1. Take it one day at a time. Things are changing a lot, but they will happen one day at a time. Take today and breathe, and make sure you’re doing things for yourself today, right now, too. Take a minute to rest, take a hot bath, let your eyes close at the end of the day. Pay attention to what’s going right.

2. Limit your time on the news. Staying glued to the television screens or digital devices won’t help. Pick a time to check in—maybe even a few times per day—and then pick times to put your phone down, put your computer away, and to let yourself do something other than pay attention to the news.

Staying informed is important, getting stressed and worked up is not helpful. Things will change every 24 hours, but within those 24 hours, you can set time aside to work, to sleep, to exercise, and to care for yourself. Being on social media or new every moment will add more stress.

3. Keep working. The world needs you, your work, and your creative energy. Yes, we need to adapt and shift and be flexible. You can do this. Remind yourself that you are brilliant, wise, creative, and strong. Don’t stop working because we’re in crisis; know that each day you’re able to show up means you can help that many more people.

4. Take action. Taking action helps. Take action for yourself, for your loved ones, and for the people you aren’t yet connected to. The ripple effects are real, and they are important.

5. Focus on what you can do. Spend time on the areas that you can control, and the part of your world where you can make a difference. Tiny actions, done collectively, make a huge difference for everyone. If all you can do today is drink eight glasses of water and go to sleep, you are helping everyone else by taking care of yourself. Keep going. Drink water!

6. Know that you are resilient and adaptive. You will find ways through this, and you will tap into a strength you might not have experienced yet. When you fall down or feel frustrated, reach out to a friend. Our power is in our interconnectedness and our strength of spirit. You can do this. Remind yourself that you are brilliant, wise, creative, and strong.

7. There will still be moments of beauty in crisis. We will witness some of the most beautiful acts of kindness and humanity amidst this. Here for you. We can get through this together.

RESOURCES

Share this episode and get show notes at startuppregnant.com/146

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Pregnancy, Parenting, Birth — find all of our resources on our online resource hub: startuppregnant.com/coronavirus

Free webinar for pregnant and birthing moms: navigating the uncertainty. startuppregnant.com/webinar

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Coronavirus: an overview of what we are dealing with.

Complete episode show notes can be found at www.startuppregnant.com/145 

You see a shiny new course offering on the Internet and then you visit the checkout page and you’re like, “Oh! This looks so good. I think I need this. I don’t know. Do I need this? Oh, my goodness! How do I decide whether or not to buy this? I just don't know. What should I learn next? I want to learn all the things.” But HOW DO YOU DECIDE?

If this sounds familiar to you, you’re just like me. Online courses and new projects and learning make me so excited and I LOVE finding new things to learn. I have so many books stored up on the wait list on my Libby app, I have a pile of things in my checkout carts, and I have a wait list of courses I want to take next after I finish my current ones.

So, let’s dig in. How should you decide what to take and what to skip? Do you have a method for evaluating when a course is a good fit and when to pass? There are so many awesome things out there to learn, to do, to grow. I often have shiny object syndrome when it comes to seeing all these beautiful online courses out there and digital opportunities for growth.

I go through this process all the time.

What I wanted to do today on this mini episode is talk to you about my decision-making process for how I decide what to learn next, how decide whether or not a course is valuable, and the tools you can use to know when you should take action on it.

I love education and I love learning. I am a loud out and proud geek and nerd, and that's where I stand on this issue. With that as my perspective, how do you decide which courses to take and how do you not get into the trap of trying to take them all and do them all and then end up with a library of 600 unread books and 60 unfinished courses?

That's the subject of today's episode, so let's get into it.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/144.

When we do things we’ve never done before, it can be crazy hard. Parenting made me feel overwhelmed, scared, and exhausted—all at the same time.

Today I want to offer a short note of perspective, alongside some encouragement. I know you’re probably in the thick of it, and what you’re doing isn’t easy. Keep going.

For me, whenever I get overwhelmed and bogged down by the magnitude of what I’m trying to do, I try to look back and remember how much I’ve grown already, and how much I’m actually expanding my capacity over time.

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/143.

Boundaries are something I could talk about for so long, but the first thing I want to do is share my favorite phrase that works everywhere. I’ve got a script that you can use to say no to requests for your time, energy, or attention. Whether it’s family members, business owners, friends, colleagues, or any other unsolicited requests for your time, these magic words will help get you out of almost every situation. 

Today’s episode is just about ten minutes long, and it’s all about the two key phrases that you can use to say no. Because it’s important to learn how to say no. 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/142

In today’s episode, we talk all about the ways I think about building mastermind programs, facilitating community, and bringing people together. Yes, I’ve overthought all of it—to the tiniest degree.

In this episode, we have a really fun question I am excited to geek out about. We are going to dig into the Wise Women's Council and the year-long membership that I created, how I designed it, why I designed it the way that I did, and how I thought about the membership model.

This specific question that I got is: “How did you decide on the model for your membership and have you been in other programs like this structured in the same way?” I’m excited to talk about this because I like to overthink things like this. I get really geeky about community design and creating really good containers for people and then testing them. I have been hosting mastermind programs for last five or six years, and one of the things that I like to do is to figure out and really test and tweak each year to make it better and better. Today, we’ll talk about the pieces that make it work, the components that make a mastermind or community program great, and how to setup the right infrastructure.

I have been in things that have worked amazingly well and I have been in things that have fallen flat on their face. Each time, I observe and I take notes and I think about it and I say, “Okay. What worked really well there and what didn't work really well and how can we combine these elements to create the next container?”

I hope you enjoy my iterative approach and hearing about all of the lessons I’ve learned so far in building mastermind programs. Take this, build your own, join one, or find a community space (or three!) to call home.

This is a full-length preview of our new podcast: Ask Sarah.

Many of you know that we just launched a second podcast last Fall — Ask Sarah: The Podcast — a show where I go deep into your life, my life, and everything in between. This podcast isn’t just about my life, although you are welcome to ask me anything you’d like. This show is a place where you can ask me for my feedback, my opinion, and my strategy on whatever challenge or puzzle you’re currently facing.

We’re sharing one of our latest Ask Sarah Episodes here as a preview on The Startup Pregnant Podcast so you can listen in. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/140.

Personally, I find it really challenging when people smile at you and say things like, “Wait and see,” or “You’ll get it when you become a parent.” No, thanks—please tell me now!

So for this episode, I decided to dive straight into the daily tangle that is the parenting logistics required of managing small humans. It is in these daily nuances—and the morning pitter patter of tiny feet—that our work lives and our careers begin to explode.

But I don’t think it’s parenting that’s the problem. I think that we’re suffering from an urban design problem, from a lack of steady and consistent child care options, from a radical change in the makeup of what families look like, and from a work world that has slowly encroached to take up nearly all of our available hours yet pay us less over time.

No wonder it’s not working.

If you feel like parenting is driving you insane, or the commute to schools are making you cross-eyed, or if you hear another snide remark from a colleague about how you’re not devoted enough to your job, this episode is for you.

• The nitty-gritty of the morning routines, the logistics of childcare, commutes, and the after-school routines.
• Why school schedules are such a logistical nightmare.
• What’s changed about the American family and why having two working parents changes the game.
• What the work world is asking for, and why it’s designed based on the “Ideal Worker”—A.K.A. a child-free, single, unobstructed male.

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/139.

In the first few years of having kids, it can seem like the snotty, runny noses are never ending. In a way, that’s true. Young children are building their immune systems, and in doing so, they are dealing with all the colds and viruses going around. They get sick a lot.

Whether it’s in the younger years because they are at daycare, or the older years when they hit kindergarten, almost every parent I know says there is just a long season—about a year and a half—where their kids get cold after cold and seem to be a giant germ factory.

Toddlers are a giant germ factory

On this episode, I dive into my best strategies for keeping colds at bay, and the tools we use to manage the bugs when they do inevitably hit our household.

My favorite tip? If you have older kids, have them change their clothes (or at least just their shirt) and wash their hands thoroughly when they get home from daycare. That toddler shirt is filled with grime, snot, and boogers and other kids’ sneezes. We adopted this trick when we had our second child, and it helped cut the spread of toddler germs down a ton.

Listen in for my time-tested ways to keep the germs away, why we’re “super boring” in the winter and sleep a ton, and what we do when the colds do catch hold (because they do)—our portable steam inhaler and neti-pot are two of our favorite winter friends.

Good luck, parents. It’s germ season, and winter can be rough. If you have extra sick days at your work with young kids, or you can slow down your work pace through winter, do it. No need to be a superhero with a tiny one at home. You already are a superhero as a working parent, and it’s okay to just do a “good enough” job right now.

Want to simplify your business—or your life? After the birth of my first kid, I was exhausted and overwhelmed, and my current systems weren’t working. So I got out my pen and paper, wrote down everything I was doing, and cut half of it off my list. How’d I do this? By identifying the things that are the most important for business revenue, and deferring the non-essential items until later. Now I’ve got a short book walking you through the process, with key questions that help you get clarity and find a way to breathe again. Download the book at startuppregnant.com/minibooks. Here’s to small moments of sanity. We all need it!

Want to be part of the magic that is gathering together with smart, talented, wise business women? The 2020 Wise Women’s Council is now open for enrollment. Early bird applications are open through January 20th, and the program kicks off in March. Yes, we want you—all of you in your messy, imperfect, parenting-business-what-am-I-doing-madness. Apply here.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/138.

A friend of mine reached out a few weeks after the birth of her second baby girl and said, “I need to tell you my birth story.”

“Absolutely,” I said, “What do you want to talk about?”

“How I changed my birth plan and care providers for my second pregnancy—I was much more intentional about who I wanted around me, and the people I wanted to be in the room.”

Today we get to hear Tanya-Birl Torres share her two birth stories on our show, and the marked difference between her first birth and her second birth, and why she decided to create such an intentional environment for her second pregnancy.

Tanya is an actress, dancer, and choreographer who spent a decade in a career on Broadway, performing in shows like The Lion King, On The Town, West Side Story, and many more. With her first baby, she was on Broadway throughout her pregnancy and back in the show not long after giving birth.

Today she has a creative practice as a yoga and meditation teacher (which is how I met her), works as a director, and is the founder of So Humanity, an organization dedicated to embodying, facilitating, and bringing out change in across individuals and organizations.

In this interview, which we recorded with her 7-week old at home, she shares her background as a performer and a dancer, and what it was like to get started as a dancer and then, after performing for a while, to get pregnant and have a baby while working on Broadway. Today, six years later, she gave birth to another child and reached out so we could talk about what it’s like to advocate for yourself and what you need through the process. Every hospital, midwifery practice, and doula practice is different, and these institutions around us affect us. She shares how to listen in to what you need and why it’s important to find the right people to help support you in your birth, business, or life. She is a phenomenal storyteller. You’ll love this episode.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/137.

For Priti Krishtel, she got the call late one night that her kid was here, and she jumped on a plane to be at the hospital on the other side of the country just 24 hours later. On today’s episode, we talk to Priti about her journey to parenthood, and her thoughts about becoming a mother, and how she felt about parenthood in her twenties and thirties. 

For a long time, she wondered if it was in the cards and whether or not motherhood was right for her. When she met her partner in her late 30s, she tells us how it was early on that he brought up adoption and kids. She was thrilled to find someone on the same page as her. 

Priti is a human rights lawyer and the cofounder of a company called I-MAK. They are a company focused on changing the way that people have access to medicines. Today, over 2 billion people live without access to critical life-saving medicines that are often priced so high as to be unattainable. One of the root causes that they’ve identified behind this problem is the outdated patent system which enables drug companies to get hundreds of patents and set high prices for extended amounts of time. This can be crippling to people who live in poverty. Her work is all about how to medicines more accessible for everyone particularly vulnerable populations. 

In today’s show, we hear the story about how she took a sudden, short leave from her company to welcome her child to her family, and how her company rallied behind her throughout the process. We’ll hear about her process of adoption, how becoming a parent influenced her work, and how her work changed in becoming a parent. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/136.

Cary Fortin, who many of you have heard before on the podcast, is joining us again today to talk about minimalism, motherhood, and decluttering. Cary is a writer, a storyteller and a designer, and she is the co-founder of New Minimalism, a company focused on de-cluttering and design. She and her business partner, Kyle, help people regain meaningful relationships with their stuff and their things through organizational philosophy and design.

They founded the company in 2011—before the Marie Kondo craze hit—and they started their business by going into people’s homes and helping them find a new way with their things. In 2018 they released their first book, New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living. The beauty of this book is in its deeper philosophy, behind why we have things and what we surround ourselves with and what to do about them.

Behind all of our stuff are a series of questions: What is the purpose and the joy of the space? Who is it serving, and why? What are the meanings behind the things you have, and what do you want the space to do for you?

In this episode, we talk about rethinking your spaces and how to do so with intention, compassion, and understanding. Moreover, I ask her about minimalism, motherhood and staying sane in the chaos of kids:

• What do you do when you have the chaos of a toddler, or all those endless things it seems like babies need?
• How do you set boundaries and communicate a sense of simplicity amidst the madness, and is it even possible?
• Do you really need a baby shower, or a registry—and if so, what should you put on it?

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/135.

When Brea Starmer was seven months pregnant while working at a startup, she was laid off. In her third trimester, she started a consulting practice and interviewed for jobs—quickly starting her own consulting practice and then launching her company. Between having her first kid and then getting pregnant with her second, she decided to focus on building her own consulting agency to create flexible jobs for working parents. She hired her first person at the end of 2018 and has since grown her company to 50 people today.

Tara Zimmerman had a similar career pickle, but of a different nature. When Tara Zimmerman first became a parent, she didn’t have a master plan to be a stay-at-home mom. But then, four kids and eight and a half years later, she was running a household and juggling a massive schedule with six humans at the core. But where was she, and did she want to get back into the work world? Turns out, the answer was yes. She signed up to join the Wise Women’s Council to support her while she transitioned back into the work world and back into a finance and operations role at the company she used to run with her husband.

Today’s careers are no longer linear, and they don’t follow a map. Most of us have unconventional career paths, because we’re living through a time when the world of work is rapidly changing. Not only that—our lives are unfolding and changing, too! From children to parents to unexpected bumps along the way, we’re navigating a new world of work that hasn’t existed before.

If you feel like you’re entering the world of parenting and it’s madness, because your job is changing, your dreams are changing, or the company you thought you’d be with completely folds one day, trust us—you’re not alone. Whatever it is that happens in our stories as it unfolds, we all eventually arrive at a place where we look around and say, “Wait a second, where am I? What happened? And what do I do next?”

That question—what do I do next—is at the heart of the work that comes up time and time again with the women in our community here at Startup Pregnant. It turns out, it’s not always an easy question to answer, and it’s through conversations and connections with other people that we can see who we are and wake up to the changes we want to make in our lives. If you’ve been through a career pivot, or you’re wondering what you’d do during a layoff, or a work break, or you’ve even left the world of work for a while—today’s episode is for you. 

Today's conversation is between me and two of the women who just finished our year-long Wise Women's Council, our annual program for parents navigating entrepreneurship and parenting. If you listened to last week's episode, we talked to three women in the program about navigating your career path when you have kids, and the many ways entrepreneurship can show up in your life. This week, we get to meet two more women who have been in this community mastermind all year.

What I learned over and over again from each of these women is how many of us are figuring it out as we go and doing what we can with what we have, even as the world continues to change around us.

 Whether you are reentering the work world after a break or you're facing a huge amount of uncertainty after a layoff or you're starting to build a new company from scratch, or maybe you're even creating a new role for yourself within an existing company. The challenges that face us as we level up in leadership while becoming parents are not easy. I'm so thankful to both Tara and Brea for coming on the show and sharing their stories with you today.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at 

One of the things I keep learning from gathering groups of working women together is how broad and diverse the realm of entrepreneurship is. Common culture would have you believe that entrepreneurship looks like a single white dude building a company out of his garage with a bunch of coding co-founders. Eating ramen. Dropping out of Harvard.

Sure, Silicon Valley has that.

But there is so much more to entrepreneurship than this.

I've met women who are building so many different businesses, in many different forms. What I’ve learned in interviewing and working with hundreds of you is that building businesses is a huge, broad landscape—and that women are building businesses faster than almost any other demographic group. (Black women are starting businesses at unprecedented rates.)

From private practices to PR firms to new companies serving women and families, to big tech companies to investment companies to research-based practices—women’s entrepreneurship is diverse, phenomenal, and important.

There is no one path to entrepreneurship

For some people, they became entrepreneurial by accident—stumbling into entrepreneurship when a career path reached a dead-end, or wasn't fulfilling anymore. Others, like the story Tara McMullin shared on our podcast, found themselves jobless and pregnant and with a choice: start a new adventure or try to find another gig? Still some people start down the path because of a product idea they can't get out of their head, or a market segment and a population that needs to be served. Some people become entrepreneurs because it’s their calling. Some people don’t even know they’re building a business until long after they’ve been serving clients and realize that they’re in the thick of it as a full-fledged business owner.

People are creative. We like building things.

Here's a secret: most of us scroll Facebook and Twitter and Instagram because we are bored out of our minds, lonely, or craving more stimulation. The "news" is a stand-in for the type of deep satisfaction that comes from making things with our bodies and minds, and truly connecting with other human beings. Humans naturally crave learning, growth, and being with other people.

Entrepreneurship—the art of making new things, of creating a new business in the world, and serving other people with your gifts and talents—can be deeply challenging and immensely satisfying. I've met and interviewed entrepreneurs of all types and what I've learned is that it's not about how you look, whether the media covers your type of business, or the “hustle” you’re supposed to have.

Entrepreneurship is about listening to your own inner wisdom, it’s about knowing yourself and deeply understanding people around you, and it’s about making things that change other people’s lives while also changing yours. It’s about the call to leadership, business, and growth.

Last year, in The Wise Women's Council, we had 18 women join us for a nine-month journey following the ups and downs of building businesses, careers, and lives. Some of the folks we had joining us on the journey included:

• A tech employee who used the courage of the group to quit a lucrative leadership position and venture out onto her own to test two of her ideas for upcoming companies.
• A service-based entrepreneur who helps other business owners build maternity leave policies and stay sane while taking parental leave.
• A marketing consultant who was fired from her job while pregnant and vowed to build a better business, launching a marketing consultancy from a small studio shed in her backyard in Seattle. (You’ll hear her story on the latest podcast roundtable.)

Today, I bring three of these women onto the pod

Last time we talked, I was in the middle of a midstream flop.

Sometimes forward progress doesn’t look like progress at all—because other things take a spot on the front burner. It’s hard to acknowledge all that’s happened here at Startup Pregnant without still feeling like I have twelve burners cooking and I’m constantly burning something. Maybe, actually, the more accurate metaphor is that I forgot to start the boiling water in the first place. That’s what it feels like, at least.

Getting things done is not linear, and it’s not easy—especially not with kids. Despite the best laid plans, trying to show up in a consistent, regular fashion and maintain focus and momentum can be hard. For me, especially when it comes to writing and entrepreneurship, it feels like some days are a scramble of fixing the things that broke, and it’s hard to measure forward progress.

What I’ve learned, and what I continue to learn, is that I need to focus on as few things as possible in order to make real moves forward. I have to make hard decisions about what to cut from my plate in order to bring the next project to life.

Today I’m excited to share the latest minibook with you, brand-new and out in the world: How to Streamline Your Business. It’s the process I use to painstakingly cut back on initiatives in order to find focus and actually ship things in the world. It’s the process I used to focus primarily on the podcast in the first year of building Startup Pregnant, and the process I used again to stay focused on building only the next branch—The Wise Women’s Council—for the year following.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/132.

I’m back for a short and sweet update, and I’m a little nervous to share that I haven’t really made any forward progress over the last few weeks. In fact, I’ve been avoiding recording an update episode because I want to be able to come back and show off a shiny new project—like, voila! Here ya go!

But my writing and building progress isn’t like that. The last few weeks have been full of work and deadlines, but I haven’t had space—or made space—for writing. Instead, I shipped important work and I still have a goal that’s on the back burner.

Here’s a short update from the writing cave, and what I’ve learned even though it’s been a lull for a moment when it comes to writing.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/131.

It's almost the midpoint of the quarter and I want to check in with progress notes.

My goal this Fall has been to step back from the weekly recording to gain enough space and clarity to do some of the writing projects that have been on the back burner. It turns out “doing all the things” isn’t a useful plan or viable option when you’re a parent and a business owner. If you want to hear more about how I made the decision to take a temporary break, check out Episode #127: Pivot or Pause, and Episode #129 where I share the first update on my writing progress.

What’s the big-picture goal? I want to write, publish, and ship the first draft of some of our minibooks in our collection. I’ve had ideas burning a hole in my pocket for ages and it’s time to take them out of my head and put them onto the page.

The good news? We shipped the next MiniBook!

Over the last three weeks I’ve been focused on creating a MiniBook called The Pregnancy Reading List: Short, Sweet Summaries of All The Books So You Can Take All The Naps.

I've read probably at least 100 books on motherhood, parenting, pregnancy, fertility, women's health, wellness, and postpartum care. And I get this question a ton from all over—'Hey, what's the best pregnancy book for my friend?'—or "Do you have any favorite parenting books?"—I mean, gosh do I have a few favorites. But I also know how overwhelming it is. Many of these books can be massive—900 pages!—and it can seem like a second college degree just to read all of these books.

The book is now available on our website. If you go to startuppregnant.com/minibooks, you'll see the books we're working on, and you'll see that The Pregnancy Reading List is available right now. It comes in PDF, mobi, epub, and web format, so you can read it on your e-reader, Kindle, on any website, or download it as a PDF.

Also, when you buy a copy of the book, you also get free access to all of the future versions of the book—every time I update the book, add more summaries or notes, or edit it, you get a free download of the latest version.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/130.

I’m tired of all the advice to hustle harder and put better productivity systems in place. I’m great at systems and great at productivity and I’m really good at working harder. 

Sometimes you don’t have more bandwidth to give, or more strategy to apply.

For me, realizing that I have to shift things around and really focus—and prioritize—has been painful yet key in building my business. 

I cannot claim to be able to podcast, write books, run a business, be a parent, get enough sleep, and stay well-connected in all of my friendships. That would be a lie. I’m tired of being sold this lie.

If you’ve been following along on the podcast, I’m sharing my real-time decision to ‘pause’ the podcast while I bring something else into focus: the writing and publishing work I want to do both for myself and for Startup Pregnant. I’m taking you behind-the-scenes of my other projects, and giving you a glimpse into how it’s working.

Why? Because these shorter mini-episodes take me significantly less time than the longer-form interview podcasts, and I’m publishing them only as frequently as I can manage. 

Join me this Fall as I share how it’s going, and we’ll be back with longer episodes when the time is right.

PS: If you’re hankering to join us for the next 90 days and you want to focus on getting one thing done in the next year, take a listen to the previous episode, The Next 90 Days, and join us in our Facebook Group and tell us what you’re working on for the rest of 2019.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/129.

As business owners—and parents!—we’ve got limited time. SUCH LIMITED TIME. It’s crazy how fast the days fly by and how maddening it is to slot in all of the family logistics across work time and still get anything done.

As we approach the end of the year, and think about the last quarter of 2019, it’s a great time to focus on one final project or sprint. What would make 2019 great for you? What project, if you made some major headway on it, would really move the needle for you? 

In today’s episode, I share what I’m focused on for the next 90 days, and how I’m changing the podcast format for the rest of the quarter to help me get even more focused on what I want to ship. If you want to join me and take the next 90 days to focus on a specific goal, share with us in our Startup Pregnant Facebook Group and stay accountable over the next 13 weeks to finishing the year strong.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/128.

As we geared up for Fall, I felt the urge to stop this podcast for a while. To be honest, it scared me a little—I couldn’t stop, could I? So I asked the group of smart women in our online Startup Pregnant community group and got a ton of wonderful feedback. You all helped me think about this process and what felt like a hard decision from so many new angles. 

In this episode, I share some real talk, behind-the-scenes of what it takes to be a content creator, why I feel like the podcast is blocking other work that I want to make, and just how hard it is to build a business as a working parent sometimes. Honestly? I just want more time! But in lieu of that, I had to step back and make some hard decisions. Listen in to hear where the podcast is going next.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/127.

So, we are experimenting and trying something new here at Startup Pregnant. We're starting a private monthly podcast, a fireside chat session between me and you. From time to time I'll bring on guest experts to help answer the questions, and you'll get to listen in to all of the challenges people bring our way.

Right now, I’ve got a long list of questions from all of you, and I’ll be rolling through them and publishing these conversations as a private Q/A podcast. In today's episode, I'll share with you how to submit your question to us, some of the juiciest questions we have so far, and what you can do to get access to this private podcast.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS: 

www.startuppregnant.com/question

GET ACCESS TO THE NEW PRIVATE Q/A PODCAST:

When you become a backer on Patreon at the $7/month level, you'll get exclusive access to all of these episodes, including the back catalog of past episodes. Head to www.patreon.com/startuppregnant to become a supporter and get immediate access to the episodes.

We’re back from summer hiatus, and it was wonderful. Better than expected, honestly. I didn’t take enough time to rest after either of my babies, and this break, while three years delayed, was everything. In today’s 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.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/125.

Summer break.

As a child there was no sweeter words in the English language. With its promises of long, warm, lazy, school-free days, summer break was essentially synonymous with freedom.

But now that the vast majority of households include two working parents, summer means something very different: the end of the public school year, gaps in childcare, expensive camps, and impossibly long waitlists for affordable care options.

Today, Sarah digs into her own family’s experience with summertime care gaps (hint: it involves lots and lots of logistics) as well as her personal and professional goals to take a true summer break. She also pulls back the curtain on Startup Pregnant’s two year history (!) and shares the advice she’d give someone starting out on their own business building venture (hint: take a break).

• The existential summer break question of the modern era of two working parents: what actually does happen to the children? Have we solved for that yet and what does it look like?
• How there are 81 days every single year when kids are out of public school but parents are supposed to be working and what solutions people come up with to make conflicting schedules work.
• Sarah reflects on where this podcast started and shares some of her process for why she decided to take a summer break and why she’s so excited about it.
• Sarah shares that taking an August break is a decision she made for herself as a person and as a business owner, but also because she believes deeply in the power of rest for all people, including her audience.
• The benefits of taking maternity leave as an experiment in stepping back from the day-to-day of running a business.
• What the pace and intensity of Startup Pregnant interviews and podcast will look like beginning in September and moving forward into 2020.
• How Sarah noticed her attachment to consistency and doing things the way they’ve always been done and how that worked in the beginning but how it now possibly holds her back.
• What she’s looking forward to in this time away and hoping for the audience during the break (hint: if there is someone in your life in the thick of parenting or entrepreneurship, share this podcast with them)! 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/124.

• www.startuppregnant.com/ask
• www.startuppregnant.com/courses

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

You wake up in the morning, look at your to-do list, and find that you have 27 things on it. Then throughout the day, somehow projects just keep unfolding and expanding in front of you. No matter how much coffee you drink or deep breathing you do, you just feel totally overwhelmed by it all and don't know where to start. 

Sound familiar? It's an experience almost all of us can relate to, and these feelings of being overwhelmed can take even the best of us down.

Today Sarah shares her three best tips for how to focus and regain clarity when you're in the fog of overwhelm, so that you can keep going and get your most important work done. 

Having clear priorities, using quarterly and monthly planning, and getting a good nights’ sleep are all great tools for planning and mapping out your time—but as a parent? Yeah, that’s harder. Invariably, as a mother and a worker, unexpected projects and challenges will constantly get thrown in your lap. So how do you handle those days when you just can’t seem to get ahold of your to-do list or even figure out how to get started when so much is being asked of you?

If you are feeling swamped, or you're back in that place where it's hard to focus and you don't know what to do, listen in. This one's a good one.

• The three tools Sarah uses when—despite her planning and best of intentions—she ends up feeling overwhelmed.
• The danger of prioritizing little wins and counting on that momentum to guide you through the day.  
• How many big projects Sarah believes people can truly prioritize at any given moment. 
• What “Yak Shaving” means and how to stop yourself once you realize you’ve gotten off course. 
• Why, intense metaphors aside, working moms need to not just “kill their darlings” but “stab their YouTube dreams in the eye.”
• How to use your calendar to prevent overwhelm and account for even the smallest tasks. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/123.

• www.startuppregnant.com/ask
• www.startuppregnant.com/courses
• startuppregnant.com/question
• Annual, Quarterly, and Monthly Review Templates

 
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE, CHECK OUT

• Taking a Maternity Leave When You Run Your Own Business — Episode #031 With Stacey Trock

What happens when we listen fully? Without interjecting with our own opinions or experiences? Without asserting a best possible outcome or stating facts to support a specific viewpoint?

How often do you leave a conversation—with a friend or colleague—and think to yourself, “They just don’t get what I mean/how I feel/how complicated this is.”

How often do you catch yourself offering advice or trying to fix a problem for a friend before you realize they really just want a safe space and a friendly ear to empathize and process with them?

Sarah digs into these overlapping experiences and asks the big question, “How can we create space in our personal and professional conversations to allow for real connection, true empathy, and beautifully nuanced understanding of one another?"

Today we’re talking about how deep listening and thoughtful questioning lend themselves to much more open, nuanced, thoughtful conversations and relationships. Sarah is going to share the incredibly simple and astonishingly powerful tool she uses in her personal and professional life to connect more deeply with people, to grow her business, and to be of the deepest service to her clients, friends, and mastermind groups. 

• How we tend to believe we know what’s best for others based on our own experiences, information, and desires.
• How quickly we lose sight of the true goal of conversation—connection—and instead move into problem solving, telling our own stories, or moving on to the next point.
• Sarah’s experience in her second birth of hiring and then ultimately choosing not to work with a doula who, rather than listening to Sarah and Alex’s preferences and desires, attempted to “educate” them into choosing a different path.
• The delicate and crucial difference between presenting useful information so someone can make a thoughtful decision for themselves and believing that someone “ought” to choose a specific choice due to the information you have.
• The profound power of a woman’s birth story and her decision to experience a pain-free birth.
• Why we strive at Startup Pregnant to present a wide range of experiences of pregnancy, parenthood, and work and why we always begin those stories with “in my experience.”
• The not-so-secret reason that coaching and therapy are so highly in need in our current culture.
• The super simple, incredibly effective tool Sarah uses in her life, masterminds, and with her corporate clients to build relationships and close deals.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/122.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• startuppregnant.com/ask
• startuppregnant.com/courses 

What happens when your vision of success changes while you're building a wildly "successful" company?

Allie Siarto built an incredibly successful company by all of today’s metrics and standards. She and her partner were ready to sell the company—but then she hesitated. 

What changed? 

In today's episode, we talk with Allie about how walking away from a “successful” business taught her to rethink what success really looks like. Together, she and her spouse decided to shut down a wildly crazy successful business and fire all of her employees shortly after having her first daughter. She realized she could not stand the thought of sending her to daycare and then going to work every day to work on something she didn't love. 

Redefining startup success: shutting down a company to build a vision of a different life.

The business had been all about making money and pursuing the idea of success that other people had told her she should pursue, but it had not been about creating the life that she really wanted for herself. When she shut down the business, she worried, of course, what other people would think and whether or not they would think she had failed as a business owner, especially. She worried about what her employees would think of her, but the result was that it left her with more time to pursue a completely different business, a more fulfilling and flexible career, one where she built a team of wedding and portrait photographers. Her clients used to call her at all hours with all sorts of emergencies and cause a huge amount of stress in her life. Now, she plans her schedule way in advanceShe also spends a month in Florida every year and plans sailing trips across Lake Michigan without worrying that she will miss an urgent call from a demanding client. 

Today, we’re going to talk about how she shifted from one to the other. We cover what it felt like to walk away when Allie had little kids at home and how to stop worrying so much about what other people tell you success should look like: instead, focus on what you truly want and need in your own life right here, right now.

• The early days of building Loudpixel (her first company), and the stress it caused on her life and partnership.
• How she listened in to what “selling” felt like and how she realized she was building a company—and trying to sell it—for reasons that weren’t really hers.
• Why the birth of her first daughter prompted her to rethink what she was building in business, and why she eventually shut down the company.
• How the space and freedom from shutting down a company let her rebuild a new vision of success, with her life and priorities in mind, and what she is now doing today.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/121.

Allie Siarto runs a team of award winning portrait and wedding photographers out of East Lansing, Michigan, along with the Photo Field Notes Podcast, an educationa

What does it look like to take your work from the corporate world to the freelance world and begin the path of entrepreneurship? How do you take the piecemeal career acquired from many different projects, companies and job-hopping and then go into starting a business?

One of the things that I am fascinated with here at Startup Pregnant is the idea that we are in perpetual startup mode in many senses of the word: in our own lives, in our own careers, in our own journeys. We don’t just pick corporate versus entrepreneurship. That is a false dichotomy. Instead, I find that people end up with these really interesting layered careers where they follow projects or purposes or people and they embed their time and their energy in these various different projects whether or not it looks like a traditional tried and true company, or it looks like building a new endeavor on the side as a branch of a company, becoming an entrepreneur, starting a new initiative or starting a freelancing or side hustle career or even starting a company on your own.

Today, we talk to Randi Zinn, who is the founder of Beyond Mom. Randi lost her father when she 25, which affected her emotionally, philosophically, psychology, and also, it set her on a new career path. Her dad was an entrepreneur, and while she thought that she would be going straight from graduate school into a world of media, she ended up on a slightly different path.

Randi is an author, a wellness expert and the founder of a site, company, blog and suite of tools called Beyond Mom. Beyond Mom is a company that provides things like wellness retreats, mindfulness at work, encouragement for women an overall philosophy and ethos supporting women interested in taking back their right to self-love, self-care and community. Randi encourages moms to cultivate a life beyond mom, one that embraces the gifts of motherhood, but expresses all that they are as individuals.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• How Randi’s first pregnancy ended in miscarriage but going through a loss with her husband brought them closer together.
• How as an only child herself, Randi loves to learn about the sibling relationship by watching her son and daughter together.
• The way the loss of her father impacted her career trajectory, leading her away from a traditional path in media to following in her entrepreneurial father’s footsteps.
• How yoga entered her life as a stress mediator through this process, but that once she was a mother, teaching and “schlepping” from studio to studio became untenable.
• Her surprise at meeting other mothers who were using their transformation into mothers to gain momentum in changing their career paths as well.
• The organic origins of Beyond Mom and how by spending time with and serving her ideal customer, Randi was able to create an authentic, deeply desired service and brand.
• Beyond Mom’s focus on supporting the entire woman, both on her journey through motherhood and, above all, on her personal journey as she evolves and grows as a whole person.
• How in the inspiration behind her book was to make her message and platform accessible across socioeconomic and geographic lines.
• Why, despite all of the challenges, she commits a large portion of her business to bringing women together in person because that is w

Why is it that the burden of childcare, children and the home is so unequally dumped on women's shoulders? Where did this come from? Why is it happening and what can we do about it?

Women have fought for equality in the workplace for a long time. It’s something that is publicly talked about and advocated for and a current movement in today’s society. But what about our not-so-public lives? What about life at home?

For many women, there is nothing as maddening as coming home and realizing that there is the second shift and an incredible amount of work that disproportionately falls on your shoulders. For women across the country, this includes the domestic labor of the home, caring for children and all of the maintenance required from invisible labor to mental load. Some would call this emotional labor to the organizational and the logistical work. Well, it’s enough to drive people crazy, or to divorce.

The hardest part is that once children enter the picture, people who believe that they are in equal partnerships often find that women are the ones that take on the burden of domestic work. Why is this happening? Why isn't it budging and why is it so enraging?

Today we get to have Darcy Lockman on the show to talk about exactly this. Darcy is a former journalist turned clinical psychologist and the author of a book called All The Rage: Men, Women and the Myth of Equal Partnership. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Psychology Today and Rolling Stone, among others. She lives with her husband and children in Queens.

• How Darcy and her husband entered both their marriage and parenting assuming that all household duties would be shared, but how Darcy nonetheless found herself managing most of her daughter’s needs herself.  
• The role resentment plays in modern parenting as couples enter parenthood assuming parity and find that culturally we’ve never gotten above men carrying 35% of the childcare load.
• Why Darcy decided to utilize her background in journalism and psychology to investigate her frustration with how differently her husband and she lived in their parenting roles.
• What Darcy’s goal for this book is: to draw attention to and move the needle on the amount of unpaid labor mothers do, because, as she notes, it's not without great cost to women’s well-being, potential career success, and earning potential.
• How cultural beliefs undermine potential parental parity from pregnancy with the belief that mother’s have an innate instinct for parenting. Meanwhile, the truth is that fathers and mothers undergo the same hormonal changes during pregnancy and have the same starting aptitude for parenting. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startupparent.com/119.

Darcy Lockman is a former journalist turned clinical psychologist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Psychology Today, and Rolling Stone, among others. She lives with her husband and baby daughter in Queens.</

What happens when the medical establishment ignores your concerns, complaints and symptoms? When your doctor tells you everything is normal even though everything in your body is telling you it's not? How do you recover from a traumatic birth and near-death experience that could—and should—have been prevented?

Today we get to hear from Lucy Knisley, New York Times bestseller and author of the brilliant, brave, terrifying, and hilarious graphic memoir Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos about all of those questions.

Having always known she wanted to be a mother and having considered herself very well-informed on reproductive rights and health, Knisley was shocked by how daunting the actual process of becoming pregnant was. In her words, “I was like, ‘All right. I'm informed. I know what to do. I'm healthy. I'm ready for this. We've got a home. We've got a stable environment to bring a kid into.’ They say there's no perfect time and there isn't, but we were prepared as well as we could be. Then everything went wrong.”

Everything that went wrong included two miscarriages, uterine surgery, grueling nausea once she finally became pregnant and then total exhaustion later in pregnancy. Most frightening and serious of all, Lucy suffered through undiagnosed preeclampsia for much of her third trimester. By the time she finally gave birth to her son via C-section, she suffered a number of seizures, lost half her blood and was in a coma for several days. Knisley almost died because her experiences, symptoms, and fears were dismissed by several medical professionals over months of her pregnancy and birth. (Yes, we are enraged by this too.)

Today we also hear from Knisley about the following: her very structured schedule for creating her graphic novels, why she has decided that it’s best for her son to be an only child, her partner’s journey through deciding whether he wanted to be a parent, and why, despite the deep trauma of her birth story, Knisley feels incredibly fortunate.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• Knisley's view on her comics and graphic novels as a way to share and connect while being true to her introspective, introverted self.
• How, despite volunteering at Planned Parenthood and receiving sexual education in school, Knisley felt shockingly uninformed about what it takes to actually get and remain pregnant.
• The way that experiencing miscarriages flipped her previous understanding of delivering a healthy baby as the top response to intentionally unprotected sex.
• The enormous disservice we do to all potential parents by not properly educating our children on the frequency of miscarriage, infertility, and undiagnosed infertility.
• How shame inducing and isolating it is to be told to keep early pregnancy to yourself, which also of course means, “Keep your losses to yourself. They’re personal and private.”
• How deeply alone and ignored Knisley felt in her grief over her miscarriages until she chose to share her own story. “After I started to talk about it, it seemed like everyone I had ever met had experienced something similar. All of a sudden, these stories came out of the woodwork and everyone had something to offer. That was so incredibly healing for me to hear these other stories of surviva

What happens when you and your co-founder are both mothers? Can you modify your work schedule without altering your ambition? What type of project is worthy of your precious time and attention? 

Sometimes it takes a while to find the career path you really love. For Sonia Chang, it took a while to settle into and really own that entrepreneurship was something she felt called to do. Today, she is the co-founder of a brand new company called Playfully. She spent 10 years in product management and digital consumer products before she finally jumped into the entrepreneurial waters.

Sonia is the mom of two young kids and has another one on the way and she is thrilled to be working on building products that make life easier for new parents. Today, we talk about how she took a long-term view of her career. Her advice: don't settle for a job or a career that doesn't feel like it's authentically you. It's also okay to be patient and to wait for the right professional opportunity to come along, even if you have to make short-term sacrifices, like staying in a less an ideal job for longer than you had wanted to.

Her background includes a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has worked for a long time building digital consumer products at companies including Amazon, Zulily, Poshmark and Shutterfly. Just this last year in 2018, she 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. 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 in and around their kids.

Listen in as we talk about Sonia'a career path, her partnership, her fertility story and how IVF (in vitro fertilization) is part of that journey and how she navigates co-parenting and why equal partnerships are, to her, one of the fundamental pieces that make entrepreneurial journeys possible.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• How Sonia’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and set off a multi-year journey through infertility.
• The ways in which Sonia reflects with gratitude on her infertility and IVF journey and how that has profoundly shaped and altered the type of parent she is to her children.
• How Sonia and her partner divide child care and household duties 50/50.
• How a project manager uses Asana at home to maximize efficiency and enjoyment.

 
FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/117.

Sonia Chang is the co-founder of Playfully, a baby and child development app that provides parents quick, fun, expert-backed activities and tips to promote their child’s development. An accomplished product management leader, she has 10-plus years of experience building digital consumer products at companies including Amazon, Zulily, Poshmark, and Shutterfly. In 2018, she left the cor

How do you prepare for birthing another child when your first birth experience was traumatic? Can new mothers be realistically expected to process and integrate their birth and transformation experience when they work up until 40 weeks and are back just a few weeks later? How can we create space, ceremony, and ritual to promote healing, integration, and to fully honor women crossing the threshold into motherhood?

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 inform what she views as her life’s work: reigniting the view of motherhood as a rite of passage—full of ceremony, healing, and powerful ritual—for Western mothers.

She also makes the spiritual case for paid leave: motherhood is a profound transition that we simply cannot prepare for when working up until we give birth. Kari believes that much of the trauma we experience in birth as well as the postpartum depression and anxiety is at least partly to blame on the negligible space we give women on either side of their births. In other cultures, rites of passages are demarcated by space leading up to the transition to emotionally and spiritually prepare. This time is filled with ceremony and ritual and ideally, allows the woman to cross the threshold to new mother and give birth in a fully embodied, empowered way.

We speak to Kari at 37 weeks pregnant with her second child, a daughter, and learn about all of the healing work she has done personally over the past three years and how that has profoundly influenced the type of coaching work she does now. We get to hear about the ritual and ceremony she is creating in her own life leading up to her second birth and how we might incorporate this type of slow, quiet, space for ourselves.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• How Kari is creating space in her life for ceremony leading up to the birth of her second child.
• How her desire to have a home birth and her birth expectations with her first child turned deeply traumatic when she ended up with her “worst nightmare” of a hospital c-section.
• The ways in which having a traumatic birth opened a new portal for her and the work she feels called to do, guiding women through the passage to motherhood.
• How she spent three years healing, processing, integrating the birth experience, the death of her old self, and her own birth as a mother.
• The ways in which she is navigating holding hope and setting intentions for the birth of her daughter with a planned VBAC at home, while simultaneously releasing the idea that she can control or fight her way to a preferred birth experience.
• The spiritual case for paid leave or why Kari believes that some postnatal anxiety and depression can be linked to how little time and space we give mothers to slow down and prepare on deeper levels for the birth of their children.
• How she helps clients honor this transition to motherhood through traditional rites of passage ceremonies and rituals.
• How hard it can be to ask for and step into open space before birth when we are used to pushing hard and driving projects forward.
• The counterintuitive healing power of being in a space with people who aren’t expecting you to heal.
• How severing one’s past self and incorporating one’s vision for oneself as a mother are some of the crucial parts of becoming a mother that Western culture is missing today.
• How a coach of pregnant and new mothers balances business with her own pregnancy and maternity leave.

What happens when you get pregnant as you are trying to launch a podcast about bias in the workplace against mothers? Why is the dominant cultural story about miscarriage and fertility trauma that if you end up with a kid, it's all okay? And who should you be looking for in a company when you're considering a new job?

Today we get to hear from Katherine Goldstein, award winning journalist and host of the inimitable, brilliant new podcast: The Double Shift.

Goldstein created The Double Shift to tell diverse, three dimensional, powerful stories of mothers as complete humans. At every turn she was forced to explain that, no, this is not a podcast about parenting. No, this podcast will not hit the single note of just how hard it is to be a working mother. This podcast will, finally, allow us all to see working mothers as people with their own stories, ambitions, and struggles beyond their children.

Before podcasting, Goldstein spent several years researching bias and discrimination against mothers in the workplace. It seemed to her the deepest irony that she became pregnant while in immersed in the hectic world of pitching media companies and just how vulnerable that pregnancy made her professional ambitions feel.

Her pregnancy ultimately ended in a miscarriage, and Goldstein goes deep here, talking about all of the ways we as a culture fail to understand and help parents process their grief and trauma around pregnancy loss.

Today we also hear from Goldstein about: the blatant bias and discrimination against women in the workplace, why people in power love to push the myth of personal responsibility and “leaning in” to workers rather than deal with just how broken our working culture is, and why she feels uniquely positioned to tell diverse, meaningful stories of motherhood in order to highlight and shift just how marginalized mothers are in America.

• How Katherine navigated the experience of early pregnancy while shopping her podcast pilot to major media networks.
• Her experience with miscarriage and her desire to change how we speak about miscarriage and fertility struggles as a culture, moving away from the myth that if you end up with a child, everything worked out. She believes this edits out women whose experiences don’t end with a child from the whole conversation and forces women who’ve experienced real and meaningful trauma to act as though nothing happened.
• Goldstein’s decision to share her audio recordings of her pregnancy and miscarriage with The Double Shift audience as an episode in order to show just one of the three-dimensional, complex experiences that so many mothers have.
• The $2,500 bill Goldstein got from her insurance company to pay for the D&C procedure she needed to have after her miscarriage and her realization of just how harmful our entire healthcare system is to the working poor.
• Her biggest takeaways after spending a year reporting as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard on the open secret of anti-mother discrimination in American workplaces.
• How mothers, but not fathers, are punished for having children in their prime childbearing years and are never able to recover from the massive hit their earnings take as new mothers.

How can or should entrepreneurship change in order to meet our changing life needs? What does it look like to be a business owner as a person without children versus one with kids? And what does it feel like to go through unexplained secondary infertility?

Today we get to hear from Reina Pomeroy, coach, business owner and mother of two, across a breadth of experiences. She shares everything from her experience starting multiple businesses, to her multi-year infertility journey, to how sometimes our professional paths only make sense in hindsight. Through it all, Reina’s openness, vulnerability, and deep passion for her work shine through.

Reina Pomeroy is a focus coach for creative entrepreneurs and the founder of Reina & Co. What began as a side hustle is now a business with six team members that can offer her fully paid maternity leave. That being said, her journey, like so many of ours, felt scattered and non-linear as she lived it but now it makes sense in helping her learn important skills.

Her signature program, called The Dreamy Client Magnet, helps creative entrepreneurs get laser-focused on who they want to serve and who they want to work with and what their boundaries are so that they can book more dreamy clients with ease, get paid to do what they love, and have the freedom and flexibility to enjoy it all. The program covers how to stop doing things just because you’re good at them, and instead how to focus on what you love doing and creating space for freedom and flexibility. If you want to know where you can focus your business, that’s what today’s chat is all about.

We then get to dig into Reina’s very thoughtful and simple Social Glue Strategy, which is all about how to connect with more people one-on-one and how to use connecting authentically with other people as a strategic tool in your business. This is especially useful if you’re an online or a digital entrepreneur and you may be don’t run into a lot of people, because your office happens to be your bedroom, or your closet, or a co-working space.

Along the way, Reina also tells us about her own journey. She shares what it was like to be an entrepreneur without kids (hint: you have a lot more time to “hustle” and are a lot less tired), to switching professions after having her first baby after realizing just how precious her time and energy are. And while she is now planning out her fully paid maternity leave, there was a multi-year period in her life where she and her husband dealt with unexplained secondary infertility, or infertility that occurs after having already had a successful pregnancy. Along the way her son tried to ask Alexa for a baby, she and her husband prepared for IVF, and then ultimately conceived just hours before their first in vitro appointment.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• How Reina helps creative entrepreneurs get laser-focused on who they want to serve and who they want to work with and what their boundaries are so that they can book more dreamy clients with ease, get paid to do what they love, and have the freedom and flexibility to enjoy it all.
• Her non-linear path to entrepreneurship that might not “make sense on LinkedIn” but helped her gain the skills she needed to run her current, very successful coaching business.
• How Reina’s natural inclination to check in with and connect with people has become her most valuable trait and a skill she t

Why is so much parenting advice seemingly in direct conflict with others? How do we determine who is correct? How do we make these emotional decisions for ourselves?

Esther Wojcicki is considered the most influential educator in contemporary times and her pedagogical and epistemological philosophy is being adapted by local Silicon Valley schools as well as national and global educational programs. She is the pioneer of Moonshot Thinking, a program that she uses in schools, and her influence in technology-enabled schools has been central to the tenants and design of new modern education systems.

She is also known as the mother in Silicon Valley who raised three of the most successful women in the United States. You may recognize her as the mother of Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube; of Janet Wojcicki, who has a PhD in medical anthropology and teaches at the University of California San Francisco’s medical center; and Anna Wojcicki, the founder of the biotech and genetics testing company 23andMe.

Today on this episode we get to talk to Esther about her core principles in her pedagogical style and her parenting style. How she promotes independence, critical thinking and encourages kids to dive into topics that truly excite them. Her focus and work is on how to help children become young adults by developing the self-sufficiency to take control of their futures.

• How pregnancy and birth recommendations have changed over the last 40 years.
• How giving even the youngest children jobs or tasks can increase their feelings of accomplishment and self-worth.
• The value behind speaking to babies and toddlers like they are a partner and understanding presence.  
• Her acronym for success, TRICK, which stands for: trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness.
• That giving young children the space to be independent teaches them that: they are capable and that you trust them.
• How the single piece of advice Dr. Woj wants to pass on to new mothers is quite simple: trust yourself. No one knows your baby better than you.
• What Dr. Woj considers to be the main value of sleep training (hint: it’s not sleep).
• How successful businesses embody the same relationship with their employees that Dr. Woj used to raise her children and currently uses with her students.
  
  

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/113.

Wojcicki is a leading American educator, journalist and mother. Leader in Blending Learning and the integration of technology into education, she is the founder of the Media Arts program at Palo Alto High School, where she built a journalism program from a small group of 20 students in 1984 to one of the largest in the nation including 600 students, five additional journalism teachers, and nine award-winning journ

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?

“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.

Before fighting for this comprehensive leave policy, PL+US had to address several historic blind spots, like: how exactly do we define family to reflect people’s realities and to be more inclusive of “non-traditional” relationships? And how do we expand the type of life events covered in leave policy to accurately serve all types of caretaking and medical needs? And how can we ensure that this type of leave will be universal to all persons in the US?

Today we learn from Fabiola how 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.    

PL+US is fighting for a leave policy that:

• is 6 months long;
• includes 100% wage replacement, especially for low earners;
• Includes job protection; and
• Expands the definition of family to meet the realities of all Americans.

On today’s episode, we get to talk with Fabiola Santiago about how PL+US bases their policy on the experiences and moral authority of the populations they most desire to serve and protect, about how current leave policy is really an elite privilege granted to white collar workers, and about the “race to the top” in portions of the private sector to attract top talent with top leave policies.

• Why in order to effectively craft a truly universal family leave we must first acknowledge who has historically fallen through the cracks.
• How the “race to the top” to create top-notch family leave policy in the tech sector is actually serving to increase inequality.
• Why six months is viewed as a crucial amount of leave time, especially for new parent and infant well-being.
• How full wage replacement during leave is crucial for the substantial portion of the US living paycheck to paycheck.
• Who the sandwich generation is and how this will influence the shape of effective leave policies.
• The surprising ways doulas and doctors of color can impact maternal mortality rates and how powerful organizations like “Roots of Labor” are bridging the chasm in how we provide inclusive care for all populations
• Why we need to be thinking “more abundantly” in terms of health outcomes for mothers of color.
• How people in power can most effectively use their position to im

Why is so much parenting advice seemingly in direct conflict with others? How do we determine who is correct? How do we make these emotional decisions for ourselves?

Emily Oster, author of the wildly popular “Expecting Better” is back to apply her economist’s data-driven lens to the big questions of early childhood parenting: Should I breastfeed? Will sleep training harm my child? What are the real risks and benefits of vaccinations?

The data she uncovers is surprising. Some running directly counter to popularly held beliefs, others supporting both sides of a firmly entrenched debate. Oster is relatable and judgment free as she tells stories of how her research impacted her own parenting and which information she mosts wishes she’d had access to before giving birth for the first time eight years ago.

In many circumstances, Oster proves that conflicting information from seemingly opposing camps can actually both be correct. If someone tells you to breastfeed and someone else tells you to formula feed, what are you to do with this conflicting information? According to Oster, be informed and empowered by data, then make the best decision for your child, yourself, and your family.

Oster’s goal is not to shock parents with data or make them act counter to their intuition, but rather to help make parents more empowered, comfortable, and confident in their decision making process. Even for her, data only plays a partial role in her decisions. The rest is a careful consideration of what is best for her child, herself, and her family.

On today’s episode, we get to talk with Emily Oster about the big topics of debate in early childhood parenting as well as learn about how she coordinates her family’s schedules, how she interprets her personal work vs. stay at home debate, and what she wishes she knew before giving birth for the first time almost a decade ago.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT

• Why so many of the conversations around parenting are completely baby-centric and what is missing when we don’t consider parental and familial well-being.
• Emily’s own struggles with breastfeeding and how the data around the benefits of breastfeeding really surprised her.
• The ingenious decision Emily made to implement the task management software at home that she uses at work and how that has changed her and her partner’s communication.
• How to set up an operations manual for your family so that you can travel (for work or pleasure) and someone else can smoothly run your day-to-day family operation.
• Why we can be more confident about the data on sleep training than other areas of parenting. And importantly, why whether you choose to sleep train your baby or not, you are correct.
• How Oster herself chooses to use (and not use) data in her own decision making around her family and children, and how you can implement her three-pronged approach to making your own choices.
• The surprising ways the complex-sounding economic term “decreasing value of marginal utility” is applied to parenting and work.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode qu

What do we call women who experience emotions ranging from completee 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. If you’re like me, this podcast will leave you feeling much less alone and much more aware of the complexity of your own experience in motherhood.  

Alexandra Sacks, MD is the leading expert on “matrescence,” the term that defines and captures the transition to motherhood that is as demanding and transformative as adolescence. She is known for popularizing the concept in her TED talk as well as the New York Times article “The Birth of a Mother.” She is the host of Motherhood Sessions, a podcast released in April 2019 by Gimlet Media, and coauthor of What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood.

On today’s episode, we get to talk with Dr. Sacks about the range of psychological experiences that women encounter during pregnancy and new motherhood — from joy and bliss to anxiety and guilt. She also tells us why these experiences are totally natural and normal for a period of such dramatic identity shifts as well as hormonal, bodily, and relationship changes.

“Going through a diversity of emotions doesn’t necessarily mean you have postpartum depression. It’s the natural course of matrescence,” she explains.

She breaks down the harmful myths of motherhood and opens up space for a conversation full of nuance, paradox, and honesty. In our culture, it’s time to redefine motherhood and show the broad range and spectrum of emotions, feelings, and experiences that accompany this huge transition and journey in your life. Becoming a parent means that all of your relationships shift, that a new person is joining your family, and you are responsible in a way that you might not ever have been before. If it feels like a lot, that’s okay, because it is a lot.

• Dr. Sacks’ transition from studying postpartum depression to focusing on the diversity of emotions experienced naturally in matrescence.
• Matrescence as an extended phase of all women’s lives, including women who choose not to have children or who experience infertility, and Dr. Sacks focused work on the period of pregnancy and the first year of motherhood.
• The Bliss Myth and other honest stories we’re missing about motherhood.
• The harmful trope of the “bad mother” as the cornerstone of evil characters in myth and popular culture.
• The idea of the “Good Enough Mother” as permission and guiding light f

The two co-founders were both already parents. They’d done the pregnancy thing before. Then they found out they both were pregnant again, and at the same time.

Elena Rue and Catherine Orr are co-founders of StoryMine Media, a company that creates documentary videos for mission-driven organizations. They’d been in business together for years, and were both already parents to young children. Yet they’d been able to balance being co-founders because one was always able to cover for the other one if a pregnancy came up.

This time, however, they were due within weeks of each other!

Both co-founders pregnant? Use it as a kick in the pants

Yet instead of panic and think that business was over, they decided to talk about how to go about planning for pregnancies as entrepreneurs in a different way. They decided to use their joint pregnancies as a kick in the pants to implement changes that they’d been wanting to make as a business for years.

The intersection of entrepreneurship and pregnancy is a place I’m fascinated with at Startup Pregnant, and every interview we do shares another story of how to tackle this life design challenge in new and interesting ways. How can we make business better because of pregnancy? What if we looked at our bodies slowing down or our need for rest not as a curse on business, but as a fascinating opportunity for renovation and re-design?

Not that we’re saying this is easy

None of us are saying that this is easy or wonderful to go through—change sometimes feels like it comes through with a sledgehammer—but it is, in some cases, an opportunity for growth and leveling up.

• How to unroll your pregnancies and announce them strategically (and where the balance is between being authentic and also being strategic).
• Using pregnancy as a leverage point and changing project timelines, expectations, and deliverables accordingly.
• How to build a better team, and get better at building teams.
• Why they finally took advice they’d been hearing over and over again and actually implemented it (pregnancy was the thing that made them take the advice to heart, and take action).

Today you’ll get to hear not just from two pregnant women, but from three pregnant women, all in their third trimesters! Why? I recorded this interview back when I was also 38 weeks pregnant, so you’ll get to hear it all from all of us. Yes, we’ll tell it like it is. Listen in to this joint conversation as we talk about what to do when you find out your co-founder is pregnant at the same time as you.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/109.

StoryMine creates documentary videos for mission-driven organizations. They capture real stories and human moments, that connect people to a cause. The greatest thing you can do to serve a mission, grow awareness, and inspire action, is to find the real people, specific m

As young women, we’re taught about our menstrual cycle in relationship to two things: our periods and pregnancy. In an attempt to avoid pregnancy, fix irregular cycles, or alter heavy periods, we’re often prescribed The Pill in our teens and twenties.

We are flummoxed when we come off the pill after years or decades of use to find our old problems return immediately – they’ve not healed themselves, only been hidden by the regulating power of the pill. By only revisiting our cycles when we decide to try to conceive, we miss out on the opportunity to come into deep understanding with our bodies and to heal ourselves rather than mask symptoms.

Today, we get to talk to Lisa Hendrickson-Jack about how in taking the time to chart, learn about and understand our cycles, we can not only optimize our fertility but gain crucial information about our bodies.  

Lisa is the author of The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility. She is a certified fertility awareness educator and a holistic reproductive health practitioner. She teaches women how to chart their menstrual cycles for natural birth control, for conception and for monitoring your overall health. Her book, The Fifth Vital Sign is all about why your cycle is one of your vital signs in your body if you are a woman and how it can play a powerful tool in diagnosing and healing our bodies.

• Being a medical advocate for yourself: why it’s extremely difficult and also crucial to your long-term well-being.
• The idea that in any examining room there are two experts: the doctor, who is the expert in a field of medicine, and the patient, who is the expert in their body and their experience.
• How a family history of painful periods, fibroids, and hysterectomies led her to seek out cycle charting from an early age
• Lisa debunks the myth that regular ovulation is only important when you want children, because we need to recognize that the menstrual cycle is part of our entire biology and physiology.
• She presents an evidence-based approach to fertility awareness and menstrual cycle optimization.
• How the body is seen as low—base, even!—and unpredictable. That means that men and women have been culturally conditioned not to experience life through our bodies. This becomes a bigger problem for birthing and postpartum women, who can experience the trauma of birth itself and then can compound that damage by feeling like they can’t or shouldn’t listen to their bodies reaction to trauma in the wake of birth.

Join us as we talk about the menstrual cycle, fertility, and the opportunities we all have to learn more about our bodies simply by paying closer attention to them.  

FULL SHOW NOTE

This week Sarah and guest Cary Fortin break down some of the most powerful takeaways from recent podcast guests and what we’re looking forward to in April. We cover what makes us laugh, cry, and get fired up in a brand-new segment called “In The News.”


IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT:

• Episode # 106 with Iman Gatti and how difficult and important it is to be your own advocate in the birthing process and with your health.
• What it means to internalize that while doctors have extensive and important bodies of knowledge relating to medicine, WE are the experts of our own bodies.  
• Building resilient businesses and what to do when your employees start to get bored, and what we learned from Whitney Johnson in Episode #105.
• Why planning and designing maternity leave as an entrepreneur is crucial, even if those plans all fall apart, and why businesses and babies are so unpredictable.
• How raw and honest Vanessa Van Edwards was in Episode #104 and how helpful it was hearing her real-life maternity leave challenges.
• Why Amy Schumer’s challenging pregnancy is a gift to the world, and which portions of her most recent special “Growing” Cary just couldn’t stop laughing about.
• How women have been left out of conversations and decisions around designing everyday and life-saving objects and just how harmful it is to all of us.
• Why we are so grateful, regardless of politics, for all of the incredible women in power around the world. They are giving us all a more diverse, empathetic, powerful set of examples of what leadership can look like.

Join us as we talk about what’s impacting us most, on the podcast and in the news, this month.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/107.

Writer, author, storyteller, and co-founder of New Minimalism.

• http://www.newminimalism.com/
• The New Minimalism Book

• Amy Schumer “Growing” on Netflix
• The Guardian article from Invisible Women auther Caroline Criado-Perez  “The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests

At six years old, Iman Gatti witnessed her father brutally murder her mother. Her father was sentenced to 25 years in prison and Iman, now parentless, spent the next twelve years in foster care.

Fast forward to today: Iman is a published memoirist, grief recovery specialist, certified coach, a wife, and a mother to a beautiful baby girl.

How did she get here? How did she process and heal all the trauma she experienced over those formative years? And how has she been able to turn her own journey of healing into one of empowering other women to heal themselves?

On today’s episode, we get to hear from Iman Gatti about her courageous journey of healing of herself after unimaginable pain. We learn how she spent a decade in therapy and other recovery and healing modalities, how she ended up starting a business, and how her business now supports women in their own journeys to healing, forgiveness, and self-love. Through her work in healing her own trauma, she found a path to becoming a courageous living coach and certified grief specialist.

In this episode, we also get to listen in and hear how Iman shares how motherhood changed her and impacted the way that she works. While she found raising a baby to be demanding, she also found the logistics of it straightforward. What she wasn’t necessarily expecting was how much the soul work of becoming a mother would rock her to her core.

Join us as we talk about what it looked like for her to heal from trauma: her journey and deep work around forgiveness, self-love, and the surprising ways that pregnancy and birth were a portal to deeper healing.

• Iman’s profound story of trauma––witnessing her father brutally murder her mother just before her seventh birthday and spending the following 12 years in foster care––and her decades long commitment to healing herself.
• How the work of healing her own trauma led her to become a courageous living coach and certified grief specialist who helps others heal their own trauma and grief.
• The surprising role of forgiveness as a cornerstone of healing trauma.
• How becoming a mother herself reignited Iman’s grief over losing her own mother at seven, but also strengthened her feeling of connection.
• The vulnerability of writing her memoir and allowing herself to be fully seen.
• How she found raising a baby to be demanding but straightforward, while the soul work of becoming a mother rocked her to her core.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/106.

Iman Gatti, author of Cracked Open – Never Broken, is an empowerment coach, transformational speaker, and Certified Grief Recovery Specialist™. Through her work, she helps people overcome self-limiting beliefs, heal past wounds, and step fully into their limitless potential.

• Cracked Open – Never Broken: A Memoir

We have a series of mini-books we wrote just for Startup Pregnant listeners: from Pregnancy Affirmations to the Pregnancy Reading List and the Parenting Reading

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. So, when I reached out and asked her to be on the show, I was floored when she said yes. It’s always a particular joy when you get to connect with someone you’ve watched and learned from for a long time.

Innovation, disruption, and management theory

Whitney is an innovation and disruption theorist, and an executive and performance. She was formerly a Wall Street analyst who also started an investment firm with Harvard’s Clayton Christensen. She’s also a bestselling author of three books, her most recent the book all about building great teams and using the ideas of disruption (both of yourself as well as your process) in Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up The Learning Curve.

• What the term “disruption” means and why it’s more than a buzzword.
• How pregnancy and parenting are both “disruptive forces” and how that makes them really powerful potential forces for good.
• How pregnancy gives women the opportunity to think strategically
• Her parenting journey—when and how she decided she wanted to be a mother.
• Managing work travel and an intense work schedule with parenting.
• How to hire great people and how to build great teams.
• What to do when you have underperformers on your team, or people who have outgrown a role.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/105.

Whitney Johnson, is an innovation and disruption theorist, executive and performance coach, ​and ​one ​of the world's leading management thinkers, according to Thinkers50​.

• More about Whitney

Why is it that so many parenting books begin with some version of this little, 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 many, 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.

And no one told you.

Why? Why does our culture and our experts seem to gloss over this pivotal time?

Today, we get to check in with Vanessa Van Edwards, who was seven months pregnant when we last spoke and is now mother to a vibrant seven month old daughter.

Vanessa gives us a rare, genuine, unfiltered look at what it felt like to be unprepared for parenting a newborn, despite all her hours of reading and research. We learn about her plans and preparations for maternity leave as the founder of her business, Science of People, and how the leave she’d prepared for was upended by a customer service crisis at just 12 days postpartum.

Vanessa is a researcher, business owner, work-from-home mom, and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. Her comments –– “I was way over prepared for the birth and way underprepared for parenting” –– fundamentally altered how I view the newborn period and how I speak to other mothers preparing this journey.

• Why there are dozens of books and classes on the birth experience and so little attention paid to the first weeks of life with a newborn.
• What happens when you feel like you’re out of options as a new parent in light of Vanessa’s experience with an infant who would only sleep while being held. Do you sleep with your baby even though doctors tell you not to, or do you not sleep so your baby can? And why don’t we tell stories like these to help future parents prepare for the unpredictable first weeks?
• The gratitude and anger Vanessa feels toward her business. One on hand, it sustains her family financially and fulfills her. On the other, it’s unpredictable needs forced her back to work less than two weeks after having her daughter when she’d planned to take at least two months at home.
• Why running her business from home leaves her partner feeling like he’s crushing work and fatherhood while it leaves her feeling like she’s constantly making the impossible choice of being with her daughter or being a great worker.

Join us as we talk about the first few weeks: an unpredictable, challenging, rarely spoken of period that deserves much more attention.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/104.

Vanessa Van Edwards is lead investigator at Science of People, a human behavior research lab. She is also the national best selling author of Captivate -- a science based guide for awkward people to level up their social success and banish awkward silences forever. It was chosen by Apple as one of the most anticipated books of the year and has already been translated into 16 l

Why is childcare so overwhelming?

Childcare can be so hard! When I started looking for a nanny after my second son was born, I didn’t know how to begin thinking about the search. I reached out to a friend—who is also an amazing business mama—and asked for help with the process of hiring a nanny. Enter Anna Frandsen! Anna is a business coach and a mentor, and she’s the founder and CEO of The Heart Centered Entrepreneur. She works with people on building great systems, getting visibility for their work, and attracting clients. She is a systems pro and today we talk all about the workflows, strategies, and processes of how to hire a nanny.

How to hire a nanny

First, know that the process doesn’t have to be overwhelming, and we’re here to talk you through it. This podcast episode is a one-hour blueprint for how to do the search, what to think about when you hire a nanny, and the steps we took to onboard and enroll our nannies in payment portals, tax systems, and more. We share how we set up the contracts, established the routines and expectations, and figured out payroll taxes.

When you hire a nanny, it’s just like hiring an employee—you need to think about how you communicate best, what your work environment is like, how you’ll deliver feedback, when they’ll get paid, how you talk about your goals for your family, and more.

In this episode, Anna and I talk through our exact workflow strategies, including how we decided to go with a nanny, what steps we took to do a streamlined, easy search process, and even my “pink nanny binder,” which has my family philosophy, rules and guidelines, and the contract itself.

• How to decide and ask for the childcare you need.
• Why it can be really hard as a working mom to figure out your “working” and your “mom” identities, and how to think about it.
• Why it’s okay to ask for help, and to ask for the help you need.
• Why getting clear on what you need is as important as the next steps.
• The exact hiring process Anna uses to research, find, and interview candidates to find the right nanny for her family.
• The on-boarding workflow we put together to help bring someone onto your team, and why it matters.
• How to think about having conversations and giving feedback with someone who is in your home, and also an employee.
• Why the nanny payroll taxes seem so complicated at first, and how to break it down so it’s easier to understand.

Want to use the worksheet we’ve built to go along with this episode? Go to www.startuppregnant.com/nanny-checklist to get the checklist and get on your way to hiring a nanny. It includes best-of quotes from this episode and things to consider while you’re hiring a nanny of your own.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/103.

Anna Frandsen is a business coach and mentor, a radical optimist, a green tea drinker + mama to two. She left a career in higher education to build an online business from scratch and live her messy, imperfect, version of success. To her, the life of her dreams looks like being an ultra-present mama, serving incredible clients world-wide with her God-given gifts and giving women the freedom to build a business that changes lives.

• www.annafrandsen.com

My husband and I have a joke every year that it’s not you—it’s February. February can be rough, especially for people in the Northern Hemisphere when winter, doldrums, lack of sunlight, and all-around slushiness sets in. In our household, we make an agreement to let ourselves snack a little more, pour the wine liberally if needed, and basically catch up on any shows we want to watch whenever we have a spare moment (you know, if both kids are napping AT THE SAME TIME)—because it is February.

When it rains, it pours

This month we’ve been stretching and growing a ton here at Startup Pregnant, and we’re rolling out the next phase of our community mastermind, The Wise Women’s Council. We’re also running a 5-day Instagram Challenge, a scholarship competition for people who want to join The Wise Women’s Council, and building out our course roster for the 2019 year ahead. It’s been full, it’s been growth, and it’s been a lot.

This is the life of working parents. Work all by itself can be a lot. But what about when daycare starts, your nanny plans change, you’re just coming back from maternity leave, your kiddos get sick, you get sick, or someone gets injured? Or—your laptop breaks or your car gives you trouble.

It’s enough to make anyone scream. Parents, I salute all of you, because we’re all doing this together. Listen in as we take a brief pause and share some behind-the-scenes of the life of a working parent entrepreneur. Maybe you can relate? Because this—it’s February.

But it’s also life.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/102.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This episode is sponsored by Splendid Spoon, a meal delivery service that creates whole, healthy, plant-based soups and smoothies that can be a great fit for busy parents and new moms. Get $50 off your first order with the link splendid.to/startuppregnant

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

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How will motherhood change me? Will I be different? Will I end up on the “mommy track” and never want to work again?

These are questions that people ask themselves when they start thinking about getting pregnant and parenthood. 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.

This post-motherhood story isn’t just a myth, sadly: it’s a belief that lots of people hold, and it affects how women are treated in the workplace, and it especially affects how mothers are treated in the workplace. A study from sociology researcher Shelley Correll found that mothers in the workforce are seen as less competent and less intelligent than women without children (here’s a link to the study). In fact, Correll found that “mothers in the workforce are rated as significantly less competent, less intelligent, and less committed than women without children; and a mother is 79% less likely to be hired, and half as likely to get promoted, when compared to an equally qualified woman without a child,” writes Amy Henderson, our guest on today’s episode.

What people aren’t saying: motherhood makes you better at work

But there’s a great twist, here, and I’m excited to talk to Amy about it. While the prevailing beliefs and perceptions around mothers are terrible—they aren’t actually based in truth. That is, while we have terrible social and cultural attitudes around mothers and work, working mothers are actually discovering how much motherhood makes you better at work, and how motherhood can strengthen your resilience, ability, and leadership skills. We previously touched on this phenomenon in our episode with Sarah Lacy, and today we get to dig in even deeper.

Today I talk with Amy Henderson, CEO and Co-founder of Tendlab, all about this phenomenon and what leaders are sharing about the reality of working motherhood, and how it’s far different than the stories we scare people with. Tendlab’s mission is to help companies unlock the power and potential of parenthood in the workplace in a way that benefits every employee and maximizes productivity.

• How parenthood has the potential to transform mothers and fathers for the better in all aspects of our lives, but particularly in our careers.
• It’s not just mothers, but—yes, fathers!—that receive a positive impact on career performance IF, and only IF they actually spend a significant amount of time care-taking.
• We are entering an era where the skills developed while parenting are not only relevant, but necessary, for success in the workplace.

We also talk about what working moms should know, and wh

It surprised me that we’re here at the hundredth episode. I couldn’t have told you back in the early summer of 2017, when I began to brainstorm the idea for a podcast, that this show would still be here today, week after week. I knew that I wanted to start a conversation around women, motherhood, parenting, and entrepreneurship, and I was slowly learning that I needed to be in conversation with other women.

It happened almost by accident. I thought I was writing a book. I’d sent a book proposal to an agent in New York City, and she was intrigued. “Tell me more,” she said, “I think this concept is really interesting.” I dug in and wrote (and wrote and wrote) but never quite got the book to come together the way I wanted to.

“You know what’s missing,” she said. “We need other women’s voices in the room.”

That was it. That was the missing piece. The conversation around motherhood and parenting and business? It’s not a single-person conversation. Keyword: conversation.

So we started a podcast. A show where we interviewed women who were navigating the double arcs of parenting and business building at the same time. Of course, these lenses are huge, because we interview professionals across so many walks of life (just like you!), and we look at all of the many stories around pregnancy and parenting, from what it looks like to decide whether or not to have children, to struggles with infertility, to the challenges and joys of pregnancy, and so much more.

Today we hit the 100th episode of the podcast and I want to take a few moments to reflect on all that I’ve learned in this journey so far.

• How to get started in podcast production, and the many pieces required in audio editing, production, and set-up—and my favorite course instructor if you want to start a podcast as well.
• The art of asking great questions, and what I do to prepare for each interview, plus my three favorite questions to ask when I want to hear great stories from people.
• How much time it really takes to produce a show, and how much of my time every week is dedicated to the podcast.
• How we’ve increased our systems and efficiency over time, making it easier to produce through things like batching, systematizing, and creating operations workflows.
• What I’ve learned from interviewing so many leading thinkers, and how it’s changed the way I think and show up as a result.
• How much longer we’re going to have this show on the air, and when I estimate we’ll stop producing the podcast and show (and why).

Join me in this celebration episode, and, if you’re a fan of the show, we’d love it if you dropped us some love on social media.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at <

Christine Koh has a fascinating backstory: previously, she was a music and brain scientist who was on track to become a professor after a long career in science. Then, she left that career to become a self-described “internet unicorn.” This was no small leap: she had been awarded prestigious fellowships and one of the highest postdoctoral assignments: a joint appointment at both Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instead, however, she “hung up her academic spurs” and decided for a brand new career and a path with more creativity, flexibility, and independence. In today’s episode, we dig into this decision she made (more than a decade ago), and how her work has grown and evolved since.

Today, Christine holds a number of positions and runs several platforms, hence the nickname, ‘Internet Unicorn.’ She is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas, a pioneering hyperlocal lifestyle blog; she’s the creative director at Women Online, a communications firm that specializes in using social media for good; and she is the co-owner/designer at Brave New World Designs, an advocacy-oriented design collection.

The heart of today’s episode? We talk about how you can be a multifaceted business owner while still living a streamlined life that you enjoy.

One of her projects is a book called Minimalist Parenting, and she also has a podcast called The Edit Your Life Show (link down below). It’s a call to enjoy family life more by doing less: to stop overbooking, to cut through the clutter, and say “no” more so you can make room for spontaneity and joy in your family life.

When I found out about this book, I immediately was drawn to the themes and the advice. In the book, she writes about making room in your life for the remarkable, and finding your family’s true north, not everyone else’s. Asha Dornfest and Christine Koh came together to write this book, and I knew I wanted to interview them both. We got to interview Asha previously in Episode #076: Hacking Parenting, and today, we get to dig into the work, the life, and the parenting journey of Christine Koh.

• Leaving a high power, high profile job and career.
• How having her first child jump started the change.
• How she met and became “internet friends” with her co-author and co-host.
• What that looks like to be involved in lots of different types of projects.
• Why “white space” in your calendar is an absolute must.
• Her carpool strategy for getting her kids to their activities without losing her sanity.
• Why w

What does it take to be a parent and an entrepreneur in today’s work world? It takes a lot—and it takes a village. Today I talk about the Wise Women’s Council, our nine-month mastermind program for women who are navigating business and parenting. Applications are now open, and they’ll be open until February 25th. But don’t wait until the last minute—there is an incentive for all the people who apply early with a fairly significant early-bird discount. Find out all the details about the program and how to apply at www.startuppregnant.com/wwc

In today’s episode, I share all about the Wise Women’s Council, including:

• The story behind why the program started, and why it’s so important to be in community with other women.
• What we built with the program, and why community gatherings are so important for our lives and careers.
• Specific program elements, like our monthly happy-hour hang, the monthly coaching live call, and our private slack channel.
• Why we changed the name of the program from “Mastermind” to “Wise Women’s Council.”
• The book club (one per month!) and who we get to have in our minds alongside us in the journey.
• The monthly themes and how they will inspire each of us to go deeper as a starting point for our own personal journeys and inquiries.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/098.

• www.startuppregnant.com/wwc
• www.startuppregnant.com/mastermind

This episode is sponsored by Splendid Spoon, a meal delivery service that creates whole, healthy, plant-based soups and smoothies that can be a great fit for busy parents and new moms. Get $50 off your first order with the link splendid.to/startuppregnant. 

• Startup Pregnant

It’s been about four months since I gave birth to my baby boy, and now we’ve got two littles in our household. A toddler and a baby and a business is a handful, for sure. I’m slowly getting back into the studio and back into recording.

I’ll be honest—I was a little scared to get back behind the microphone because I’m not sure my words are coming together. All the things about postpartum I’m living right now, and I feel a little foggy-headed, a lot tired, and sometimes I just run out of steam by mid-afternoon. (“Sometimes” is very generous there.) But the best I can do is be kind to myself, do the best I can, and let my best be good enough.

We don’t have to be perfect. (I’m saying this to you as well as me.)

Thanks for being here, listening, as always while I was away on maternity leave with baby number two.

In today’s episode, I give a brief update on:

• How the birth of baby number two was.
• What’s coming up on the podcast (we have some special guest series coming up).
• The status of the mastermind (applications are now open)
• What major shift we made in our family that affected my work, and how we’re changing things up going forward.
  

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/097.

• www.startuppregnant.com/wwc
• www.startuppregnant.com/mastermind

• The Startup Pregnant Mastermind

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Personality science is a fascinating discipline. That’s why most of us know our DiSC profile, our Myers-Briggs type, and even our Hogwarts House. We want to understand how we are wired and how that impacts the way we react to the world. But what if we took it a step further and applied an understanding of personality science to business?

How would that change our hiring processes? Or the way we approach our colleagues and clients?

Vanessa Van Edwards 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.

Today, Vanessa joins me to discuss how Science of People came to be and how she applies personality research in her own work culture. She shares the Big Five personality traits backed by academia, offering insight into how our levels of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion-introversion, agreeableness and neuroticism impact the way we work. I ask Vanessa about the failure of her first book, and she describes the downward spiral that ensued and how she eventually found her way back to writing. Listen in as Vanessa explains her experience with pregnancy thus far and how expecting gave her the opportunity to work ON her business!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/096.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we have launched a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To apply for the Spring 2019 session and receive my free email series, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VANESSA VAN EDWARDS

Vanessa Van Edwards is the founder and lead investigator at Science of People, a research lab where she uncovers the hidden forces that drive our behavior. Vanessa writes a monthly column for Entrepreneur Magazine and the Huffington Post, and her work has been featured on NPR, Business Week, and USA Today. She is a sought-after keynote speaker, delivering talks at the Consumer Electronic Show, TEDxLondon, and MIT, among many other venues. Vanessa is the author of the national bestseller Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People.

• Science of People
• Vanessa on YouTube

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People

Mantras can be powerful in helping us reprogram our thinking. Yet, many of us have a hard time making them stick. So, how do we rewire our brains to make affirmations part of our conscious programming?

Erin Stutland’s background in dance combined with her interest in personal development and grew into a practice of ‘mantras in motion.’ She couples positive self-talk with movement to strengthen body AND mind in tandem, and the pairing makes affirmations ‘sticky.’ A concept like courage evolves from an intellectual idea to a physiological sensation: We feel it in our body and it becomes a part of us.

Today, Erin joins me to share her journey from artist to entrepreneur, explaining how working as a dancer and actor prepared her to run her own business and what inspired her transition to full-time entrepreneur. Erin discusses her journey to motherhood in her late 30’s, offering insight around her empowering experience with IVF, the emotion of being on camera while your body is changing, and the impact of pregnancy on her body image and identity. She also describes her initial ambivalence about becoming a mother and how much she is loving the role thus far. Listen in to understand the questions Erin is grappling with in her business as a new mom—and learn more about her new book, Mantras in Motion!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/095.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

One of the biggest challenges we face in business is developing focus, figuring out how to do less and gaining clarity around what’s really important. I have developed a three-step process that helps me simplify and make decisions about when to say no. Get the free guide at https://startuppregnant.com/stop. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ERIN STUTLAND

Erin Stutland is a well-known mind-body wellness and fitness expert on a mission to teach people how simple movement in the body can create dramatic movement in your life. Erin’s multi-platform brand reaches 70K-plus people in 155 countries around the world, and her mind-body fitness programs have appeared on The Rachael Ray Show, Fox News, and Glamour Magazine, among many other outlets. She also serves as the cohost of the Z Living series Altar’d, and Erin is the author of the new book, Mantras in Motion: Manifesting What You Want Through Mindful Movement.

• Erin’s Website
• Erin on Facebook
• Erin on Instagram
• Erin on YouTube
• Altar’d
  

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Mantras in Motion: Manifesting What You Want Through Mindful Movement by Erin Stutland
• Patricia Moreno

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. And foundational postpartum care (like having someone cook healthy meals or getting regular bodywork) is seen as an unnecessary luxury. 

Kimberly Ann Johnson 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. 

Today, Kimberly Ann joins me to talk about the experience of childbirth and the crucial postpartum period. We discuss the online imagery of childbirth and how it differs wildly from the experience itself. Kimberly explains the separation of body and mind in our culture and what we can do to reintegrate the two by getting to know the ‘language of sensation.’ I ask Kimberly Ann about her work as a somatic practitioner and birth doula, and she shares her take on childbirth as the domain of women. Listen in for Kimberly Ann’s insight around how to communicate your needs during childbirth and learn how to get the support you need in the fourth trimester!
 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/094.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.
 

LEARN MORE ABOUT KIMBERLY ANN JOHNSON

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a birth doula, Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner and postpartum care advocate. She is also the founder of MAGAMAMA, an online community and resource for new moms who want natural empowering solutions to the physical and emotional pain that can accompany childbirth. Kimberly is the cofounder of the STREAM School for Postpartum Care and the author of the groundbreaking book, The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality. 

• MAGAMAMA
• Kimberly Ann’s Podcast
  

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson
• Activate Your Inner Jaguar
• Moshé Feldenkrais
• Dr. Ida Rolf Institute
• Wilhelm Reich
• Dr. Peter Levine
• Dr. Levine’s Animal Study

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? 

Today, Emylee Williams joins me to explain how she set up a three-day work week that bakes in time for her personal needs. Emylee describes how her schedule evolved and how that evolution was informed by becoming a mom. She also discusses the growth of her business, Think Creative Collective, explaining the benefits of transitioning to a one-to-many model. I ask Emylee about the process of adopting her daughter P., and she shares her fertility challenges and fears around adoption. Listen in for Emylee’s insight on having a biracial family and learn how she is taking advantage of the freedom of entrepreneurship to spend time with her daughter, grow her business, and make time for herself!
 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/093.
 

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

One of the biggest challenges we face in business is developing focus, figuring out how to do less and gaining clarity around what’s really important. I have developed a three-step process that helps me simplify and make decisions about when to say no. Get the free guide at https://startuppregnant.com/stop. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.
 

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMYLEE WILLIAMS

Emylee Williams is the cofounder of Think Creative Collective, an online education platform that supports creative entrepreneurs in growing their businesses online. TCC’s signature eight-week program, Strategy Academy, teaches passionate creatives how to turn their craft into a sustainable online business. Emylee and TCC cofounder Abagail Pumphrey also collaborate as cohosts of the Strategy Hour Podcast, and their work has been featured in Creative Market, Forbes, and Boss Mom, among many other publications. 

• Think Creative Collective
• TCC on Facebook
• TCC on YouTube
• TCC on Instagram
• Emylee on Instagram
• Strategy Hour Podcast
  

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘Why Children Need to Know Their Family History’ in The Guardian
• Dear Sugars: Who’s Your Daddy?
  

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregn

The holiday season serves as an ideal time to take a CEO Day—a structured space and time you set aside to dream, to plan, to dig into the work you want to do in the coming year. I have developed an annual review process that allows me to reflect on the goals and ambitions I had a year ago, evaluate what went well and what was challenging, and use that information to inform what I want to achieve in the next 12 months.

Today, I’m walking you through my 10-question annual review process, discussing how I approach looking back at the previous year and planning for the future. I describe the way I reflect on major milestones, what I have learned in the past year, and what feels unfinished. Listen in for insight around setting intentions when it comes to relationships—and learn how to design measurable goals for the year ahead.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/092.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors. 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Startup Pregnant Mastermind
• PIVOT with Jenny Blake
• Annual Review Templates

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Review Startup Pregnant on iTunes

 #091 — From Doctor to CEO: A New Vision for Healthcare

Our current healthcare system focuses on the disease, rather than the person. A patient spends a few minutes with a doctor, and then they’re handed a stack of prescriptions that address their symptoms. What if we stopped to ask what was causing the problem in the first place? What if we took the time to look at the whole person and create a customized plan to help them live their happiest, healthiest life?

Dr. Robin Berzin recognizes that our current system is broken, and she is on a mission to design a new way of doing healthcare in our country. She made the transition from doctor to CEO to found Parsley Health, a revolutionary kind of service that integrates technology, nutrition, wellness, and prevention into innovative primary care.

Today, Robin joins me to share her shift from medicine to entrepreneurship, explaining the series of events that inspired her to create this new system of primary care. She describes her experience running a company as a new mom, navigating the challenges of launching new offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco during her pregnancy and pausing the second round of funding to deliver her son. I ask Robin about the principles of functional medicine, and she discusses Parsley Health’s commitment to the happiness and health of each patient as a whole person. Listen in for Robin’s insight on fertility and IVF—and learn how she is revolutionizing healthcare in the US.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/091.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ROBIN BERZIN 

Dr. Robin Berzin is the founder and CEO of Parsley Health, the only primary medical care practice with a whole-body approach to long-term health. She completed medical school at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and went on to a residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Robin is trained in functional medicine, and she serves as an advisor for digital technology with the Institute for Functional Medicine. She is also a certified yoga instructor and meditation teacher, and Robin speaks regularly on the topic of reinventing healthcare at venues including Stanford Medicine X, Health 2.0, and Rock Health, among many others. 

• Parsley Health
• Parsley Health on Facebook
• Parsley Health on Instagram
• Robin’s Website
• Robin on Facebook
• Robin on Instagram 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Parsley Health Blog
• Headspace
• Cureatr

When we invite life into our lives, we also invite death.

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.

So, how did Christine move forward after a pregnancy loss? How did she make the decision to try again? And how did she birth a thriving business in the midst of it all?

Today, Christine joins me to share her initial struggle with the decision to become a parent and the utter shock of experiencing a full-term stillbirth. I ask her about making the choice to try again, and she explains why she hid out for nine months while carrying her rainbow baby. Listen in as Christine explains how her pregnancy loss inspired the creation of her business—and learn her 7-step income replacement formula for aspiring entrepreneurs!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/090.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we have launched a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To apply for the Spring 2019 session and receive my free email series, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CHRISTINE MCALISTER

Christine McAlister is an entrepreneur, business coach, and best-selling author of The Income Replacement Formula: 7 Steps for Doing What You Love & Making 6 Figures from Anywhere. She is also the founder of Life with Passion where she serves as a high-level mentor for aspiring entrepreneurs, helping clients replace their income, quit their nine-to-fives, and build freedom-based businesses they love. 

• Life with Passion
• Life with Passion on Instagram
• Life with Passion on Facebook

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Income Replacement Formula: 7 Steps for Doing What You Love & Making 6 Figures from Anywhere by Christine McAlister
• Natalie Lucier
• Seth Godin’s Marketing Seminar 

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast

There are two contrasting narratives around cancer: We hear stories of survivors who beat the disease. And then we hear stories of people who are on their deathbeds. In reality, there is a much greater spectrum of experience.

Emily Garnett is 32 years old. She recently celebrated her fifth wedding anniversary and her son’s second birthday.

She was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer that same week.

But Emily’s life didn’t stop. She is still here. She is still making dinner and taking care of her son and going to the grocery store. And she wants the world to know what it looks like to live life with cancer.

Today, Emily shares her career evolution, explaining how she became an elder care lawyer and her decision to step away when her son was born. She shares the devastating experience of being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer as a young mom and her extremely limited options for having more children. I ask Emily how she navigates the fear and the unfairness of it all, and she describes how she talks to her son about her cancer diagnosis. Listen in for insight around the opportunity Emily has found in her illness and learn more about her advocacy organization, Beyond the Pink Ribbon.

FULL SHOW NOTES 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/089.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMILY GARNETT 

Emily Garnett is a former elder law and special needs attorney whose practice focused on adult guardianships, capacity issues, care management and public benefits. Today, she is the face of Beyond the Pink Ribbon, an advocacy and awareness platform where she documents her experience living with metastatic breast cancer. Emily also serves as the host of The Intersection of Cancer & Life podcast.

• Beyond the Pink Ribbon
• The Intersection of Cancer & Life Podcast

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Review Startup Pregnant on iTunes

“At its bare minimum, what Chairman Mom is combating is loneliness and isolation. We all know that is the biggest problem in our country right now and the biggest casualty of the trillion-dollar social media industry.” 

Sarah Lacy is building an online platform where women can discuss the most important issues they face in their personal and professional lives, without fear of judgement or abuse. So, how did she create a supportive online space for women to connect with each other? A safe place where community comes first? 

Today, Sarah joins me to discuss the Chairman Mom community, explaining what inspired her to create the platform and how it works. She offers insight around the toxicity of ad-based social networks and describes what makes Chairman Mom different. I ask Sarah about the success of her Mama Bear newsletter, and we talk about how it helped build an audience for Chairman Mom prior to the site’s launch. Listen in to understand how and why anonymity works on the platform, facilitating conversations that may not happen anywhere else. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/088. 

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SARAH LACY

Sarah Lacy is the Founder and CEO of Chairman Mom, an online community for professional women. A journalist for nearly 20 years, Sarah is known for her fearless, outspoken reporting. She is a sought-after speaker, frequent guest on national television, and the author of several books. Her most recent release, A Uterus is a Feature, Not a Bug, was published in November 2017. Sarah describes herself as ‘an unapologetic feminist, mother, and supporter of women.’ 

• Chairman Mom
• The Mama Bear
• Chairman Mom on Twitter
• Chairman Mom on Facebook
• The Chairman Mom Flee

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Sarah Lacy on Startup Pregnant EP023
• A Uterus is a Feature, Not a Bug: The Working Woman’s Guide to Overthrowing the Patriarchy by Sarah Lacy
• The Wing
• Nasty Gal
• TechCrunch
• Pando
• Bill Gross TED Talk
• SutherlandGold

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 and co-parents? How about our communities at large? What if everyone could tap into the wisdom and energy of new life, using it as a source of power to let go of what no longer serves us and rise up as a new iteration of our creative selves?

Today, I’m taking a deep dive into the idea of birth as a portal. I describe the new research by Ruth Feldman on the neuroscience of parenthood as well as Amy Henderson’s thought leadership around the transformative power of being a present and active caregiver. Listen in for my invitation to let go of old identity markers and embrace a new way of being, drawing on the power of birth to level up and welcome a new way to show up in the world.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/087.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we have launched a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To apply for the Spring 2019 session and receive my free email series, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson
• Amy Henderson’s Tendlab
• Center for Developmental Social Neuroscience
• ‘Neural Plasticity in Fathers of Human Infants’ in Social Neuroscience
• ‘The Neurobiology of Human Attachments’ in Trends in Cognitive Sciences 

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Review Startup Pregnant on iTunes

We live in a society that pressures us to do more, a cult of busyness if you will. In our holiday letters, we brag about how hectic our lives are, and as women, we have a much harder time experiencing leisure and play than we do work. So, what happens when you need to slow down and take leave from work to have a baby? 

In the US, pregnant women are typically expected to work straight through to delivery—and be back after just a few short weeks. Maternity leave is even more challenging for female business owners and entrepreneurs who lack social protections, who are not covered by any kind of infrastructure that provides the space and time to step away.

On this edition of The Friendship Series, Cary Fortin and I unpack parental leave, discussing our frustration with the 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.

Cary describes what her maternity leave looked like as an entrepreneur and freelancer and how she would afford herself more time off, given the opportunity. Listen in for insight on how I designed maternity leave this time around, batching content and enlisting the help of a team to give myself the freedom to focus on my family and my writing for several months—while my business continues to grow!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/086.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CARY FORTIN

Cary Fortin is the co-founder of New Minimalism, a simple living website and provider of declutter + design services. New Minimalism brings together the fields of psychology and sustainable design to create holistic, long-term solutions for clients looking to simplify and renew their homes and workspaces. Cary’s work has been featured in Mindbodygreen, Apartment Therapy, and Yoga Journal, among many other publications, and she is the co-author of New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living.

• New Minimalism
• New Minimalism on Facebook
• New Minimalism on Instagram
• Cary’s Website
• Cary on LinkedIn
• Cary on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• One Month
• Pumpspotting
• Arianna Taboa

At 33 weeks, I am dealing with a serious case of pregnancy insomnia. My Fitbit reports that I slept for 2:45 last night, and I was restless for 4:20. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.

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?

Today, Cary Fortin returns for an honest discussion about energy—and the lack thereof. We address how taxing pregnancy is on the body and the urge to apologize for not being able to do as much. I vent my frustration with a society that preaches the importance of family yet has little reverence for pregnant women, and Cary and I cover the myths around the dismissive term ‘Mommy brain,’ the loss of brain function associated with sleep deprivation, and the discovery that parenthood provides an opportunity to rewire your brain. Listen in to understand the significance of rest and short naps and learn how to approach periods of fatigue with a focus on self-compassion.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/085.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

One of the biggest challenges we face in business is developing focus, figuring out how to do less and gaining clarity around what’s really important. I have developed a three-step process that helps me simplify and make decisions about when to say no. Get the free guide at https://startuppregnant.com/stop. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CARY FORTIN

Cary Fortin is the co-founder of New Minimalism, a declutter + design service and online platform for people looking to simplify and renew their homes and workspaces, and the co-author of New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living. An expert in the field of simple living and the psychology of letting go, Cary is also a writer and lifestyle expert whose work has been featured in Mindbodygreen, Yoga Journal and Sunset Magazine, among other publications.

• New Minimalism
• New Minimalism on Facebook
• New Minimalism on Instagram
• Cary’s Website
• Cary on LinkedIn
• Cary on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Kate Northrup on Startup Pregnant EP008

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant o

Sure, you know a LOT of people. But how many of those people do you consider true friends? Who would you really feel comfortable calling on in a crisis?

Maintaining meaningful friendships as adults can be a challenge, especially if you move to a new city or change jobs, but you can take a proactive approach, seeking out new people you connect with on a personal level. Yes, it takes work and commitment, but the benefits far outweigh the initial discomfort of putting yourself out there.

Today, I’m sharing a few helpful strategies around making friends as an adult. I offer advice on setting an intention and going to the places where likeminded people hang out. I also discuss the value in showing up by yourself, casting a wide net, and taking a chance on a new friend. Listen in for insight on starting your own groups and learn why I say YES when people offer to help!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/084.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors. 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘Why Is It Hard to Make Friends Over 30?’ in The New York Times
• World Domination Summit
• Vanessa Van Edwards on YouTube
• Science of People

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Review Startup Pregnant on iTunes

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.

So, how do you carve out the time to nurture established friendships? Even more challenging, how do you build new female friendships? And how do you handle it when a friendship ends?

Today, Cary Fortin is back to help me explore the issue of making new friends as an adult. We discuss the process of putting yourself out there and identifying a good friendship match as well as the logistical challenge of staying in touch with long-distance friends. I explain what it means to ‘aggressively make friends,’ and Cary addresses the value in owning who you are and leading with your values. Listen in for insight on letting people know you’re thinking about them (without an agenda) and learn how Cary and I navigate the emotional landscape when a friendship ends.

FULL SHOW NOTES 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/083.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CARY FORTIN

Cary Fortin is an expert in the realm of simple living and the psychology of letting go. She is the co-founder of New Minimalism, declutter + design service and online resource for people looking to simplify and renew their homes and workspaces, and the co-author of New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living. Cary is also a writer and lifestyle expert whose work has been featured in Mindbodygreen, Fayr and Sunset Magazine, among other publications.

• New Minimalism
• New Minimalism on Facebook
• New Minimalism on Instagram
• Cary’s Website
• Cary on LinkedIn
• Cary on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Morra Aarons-Mele on Startup Pregnant EP005
• LÄRABAR
• Asha Dornfest on Startup Pregnant EP076
• Lauren Smith Brody on Startup Pregnant EP004
• The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Big Success After Baby by Lauren Smith Brody

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

If your business could only do one thing, what would it be?

In planning for my second pregnancy, I thought about how to design a business in Startup Pregnant that would serve my life as an expectant mother. Given the constraints on my time and energy, what was mission critical and what could be eliminated from my to-do list?

I got strategic about doing less. 

Today on the podcast, Cary Fortin and I continue the Friendship Series, discussing the three-step process I leveraged to design a resilient business that could weather my pregnancy and subsequent maternity leave. We explain how to reframe parental leave as an opportunity to systematize and document a business’ processes and the specific challenges faced by solopreneurs taking a leave of absence. Listen in for insight around getting honest about the number of hours you can REALLY devote to work and making decisions on which projects are integral to your business—and which can be relegated to the Don’t Do list.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/082.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

One of the biggest challenges we face in business is developing focus, figuring out how to do less and gaining clarity around what’s really important. I have developed a three-step process that helps me simplify and make decisions about when to say no. Get the free guide at https://startuppregnant.com/stop.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CARY FORTIN

Cary Fortin is a writer, editor and web designer based in Boise, Idaho. She is also the co-founder of New Minimalism, a simple living platform and declutter + design service, and the co-author of New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living. New Minimalism brings together the fields of psychology and sustainable design to create holistic, long-term solutions for clients looking to simplify and renew their homes and workspaces. The firm’s work has been featured in Design Sponge, Apartment Therapy, and Yoga Journal, among many other publications.

• New Minimalism
• New Minimalism on Facebook
• New Minimalism on Instagram
• Cary’s Website
• Cary on LinkedIn
• Cary on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• ‘Stop Doing it All’ Blog Post
• Sarah Lacy on Startup Pregnant EP023
• A Uterus is a Feature, Not a Bug: The Working Woman’s Guide to Overthrowing the Patriarchy by Sarah Lacy
• Annie Dean on Startup Pregnant EP002
• Werk

THE STARTU

Deep female friendships are one of the greatest blessings of my life. But I didn’t really have meaningful friendships with other women until my late 20’s.

Then I discovered what a gift it is to have judgement-free, deeply thoughtful conversation partners who engage in honest conversation about the hard things—sex, the patriarchy, aspirations, feminism…

And for the next few weeks, I am sharing some of those conversations with one of my best friends, Cary Fortin.

Today, Cary describes the genesis of her business, New Minimalism, explaining the psychology behind letting go of ‘stuff’ and the ins and outs of a service-based business. She shares her incredibly difficult parenting journey, discussing how dealing with the loss of two pregnancies shaped the person she is today and taught her how to have honest conversations about complex issues. Listen in for the story of our friendship and understand the value of being open with close female friends!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/081.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we have launched a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To apply for the Spring 2019 session and receive my free email series, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CARY FORTIN

Cary Fortin is the co-founder of New Minimalism, a simple living website and provider of declutter + design services. New Minimalism brings together the fields of psychology and sustainable design to create holistic, long-term solutions for clients looking to simplify and renew their homes and workspaces. The firm’s work has been featured in Design Sponge, Apartment Therapy, and Yoga Journal, among many other publications. Cary is also a writer, editor, and lifestyle expert, and she is the co-author of New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living.

• New Minimalism
• New Minimalism on Facebook
• New Minimalism on Instagram
• Cary’s Website
• Cary on LinkedIn
• Cary on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living by Cary Telander Fortin and Kyle Louise Quilici
• Replens

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

Conventional wisdom—and most official recommendations—tell us that we must abstain entirely from coffee and alcohol for the duration of pregnancy to avoid very serious consequences. And once our kids are born, experts urge us to keep our children away from screens to prevent behavior problems and poor academic performance in the future. But what does the data say?

Is it really the end of the world to have a cup of coffee in the morning? How about an occasional glass of wine? What is wrong with letting our kiddos watch an episode or two of Dinosaur Train? 

When economist Emily Oster got pregnant, she also got curious about the advice she was getting. Some recommendations were based on her age alone, and sometimes she found it difficult to get any answers at all. So, she started digging into the data.

Eventually, Emily’s research became Expecting Better, and today, she joins me to discuss her approach to writing for a popular audience and the somewhat unintentional way the book was born. Emily describes how her background as an economist shapes her decision-making and how to go about judging the quality of a particular study. I ask Emily for insight on the data around caffeine, alcohol, and screen time for kids, and she explains why two people can see and understand the same data—yet make different, and equally valid, decisions. Listen in for Emily’s take on making corrections to our thinking based on new evidence and get a sneak peek at what’s covered in her forthcoming book!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/080.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMILY OSTER

Emily Oster is a highly-respected economist and professor at Brown University. Her research interests range from development and health economics to research design and experimental methodology. Emily’s work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the bestseller SuperFreakonomics, and FiveThirtyEight, among many other publications, and she is the author of Expecting Better: Why Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know.

• Emily at Brown University
• Emily on Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Expecting Better: Why Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster
• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster

‘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.’ 

Like many entrepreneurs, Amy VanHaren uncovered a need in her personal life, and a creative idea was born. While she loved breastfeeding, Amy had no choice but to get back to work six weeks after her son was born. And work involved a great deal of travel. She found herself pumping in closets, bathroom stalls, and even between businessmen at 20,000 feet. 

Talking to other women always made Amy feel better, so she wondered what it would be like if she could reach out to other mamas in these moments of isolation. What if she could create a community where women supported each other—and change the way the world treats breastfeeding?

Today, Amy joins me to discuss the business that was born out of her desire for community, Pumpspotting, and its latest iteration in the form of a cross-country RV tour known as #breastexpress. She describes the challenges of committing to extensive travel for work with a family at home as well as the logistics of life in a recreational vehicle. I ask Amy about her breastfeeding journey, and she explains how it informed the original Pumpspotting app. Listen in for Amy’s insight around the evolution of a business and learn about the magic that happens when moms share their stories in a welcoming space.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/079.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT AMY VANHAREN

Amy VanHaren is the founder of Pumpspotting, a community designed to support breastfeeding mothers in all their forms, and VanHaren Creative, an agency that harnesses the power of social media to help companies grow. With more than 15 years in the field of creative communications and marketing, Amy has developed digital strategy for clients including Patagonia Provisions, Amy’s Kitchen, and Vistaprint, among many others.

• Pumpspotting
• Pumpspotting on Instagram
• Pumpspotting on Twitter
• VanHaren Creative
• Amy on Twitter
• Amy on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Pumpspotting App

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsl

We all have things we hide about ourselves. Things we are afraid of sharing. Things we need to ‘come out’ about. Learning to love yourself is a process, and for Mason Aid, it began when they came out as gender queer.

Mason grew up in rural northeast Missouri, where identifying as LGBTQ is not widely accepted. At 17, they were in the hospital for self-harm and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It took Mason many years to begin working on self-acceptance—and it’s still a work in progress. But now they are an LGBTQ advocate, building a startup that supports businesses in embracing inclusion. 

Today, Mason joins me to share their parenting journey, explaining how they had given up on becoming a parent until meeting their wife Hillary. Mason discusses their business, describing how their work with LGBTQ teens led to the consulting firm they refer to as ‘your business’ gay best friend.’ I ask Mason what they do to take care of their mental health, and they offer insight around using inclusive language to recognize and respect the non-binary members of our audience. Listen in to understand how Mason is strategically building a business while working 30 hours a week and learn how companies can prepare for the next generation of consumers and employees!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/078.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MASON AID  

Mason Aid is an LGBTQ educator and advocate focused on helping business owners be inclusive in their language and processes. Based in Columbia, Missouri, Mason got their start working with LGBTQ teens and discovered a passion for activism. This led to volunteer opportunities training educators and social service providers, and Mason has grown those opportunities into a business. Today, Mason helps entrepreneurs avoid ‘accidental asshole moments’ and supports business owners in embracing diversity and inclusion. Mason is also the host of the new podcast, All the Letters.

• Mason’s Website
• Mason on Facebook
• Mason on Instagram
• All the Letters Podcast

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Mason’s Blog
• Generation Z Marketing Study 

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup P

It takes a great deal of courage to leave a lucrative career that feeds your self-esteem for an uncertain future—especially if it takes years for the new venture to pay off financially. How do you learn to live in faith over fear, giving yourself the freedom to pursue something you love?

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton was working at a prestigious law firm when she took that leap, leaving a job that garnered respect—and a lot of money—to try her hand at writing. Four years in, she had a novel that still hadn’t been published and her insecurity was growing. 

At a networking lunch, Margaret was invited to participate in a Djerassi year-long novel program, and that opportunity spawned A Kind of Freedom, a 2017 National Book Award Nominee and New York Times Notable Book of 2017.

Today, Margaret joins me to share her journey from the law firm to a career as an author. She describes how parenting influences her writing practice and offers insight around the pros and cons of sleep training. Margaret also explains her surprise at the adjustment of adding a new baby to the family after managing twins with a certain level of grace. Listen in as Margaret offers a preview of the book she’s working on now and learn how she achieves her own ‘kind of freedom.’

FULL SHOW NOTES 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/077.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth before attending law school at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was a 2017 National Book Award Nominee, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, and a New York times Book Review Editors Choice. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Oprah.com, and Lenny Letter, among many other publications.

• Margaret’s Website
• Margaret on Facebook

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
• Djerassi Resident Artists Program
• The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
• Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson
• Fences by August Wilson
• Belo

Motherhood is wildly unpredictable, and it is easy to feel incompetent if your baby doesn’t behave the way the parenting books promised. How do you learn to live in the moment and accept that your experience is okay, even if it’s different from what the experts advertised? Can you parent in a mindful way, giving your intuition the same weight as what you are reading and hearing?

Is there a way to hack parenting?

When her son was born, Asha Dornfest felt abandoned by the experts. The experience of parenting wasn’t lining up with what she had read about in preparation, and Asha was desperate for practical advice. So, she created a community where parents could swap useful tips and share creative advice: Parent Hacks.

Today, Asha joins me to discuss the unpredictable nature of parenting and how her early struggles led to the creation of Parent Hacks. She shares the process of turning the blog into a book, the origin of the phrase, and the hacks that had the biggest impact on her life. I ask Asha about her minimalist philosophy, and she explains the idea of making space for many different versions of motherhood. Listen in for Asha’s insight on mindful parenting and learn how she measures success in terms of connection rather than numbers.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/076.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ASHA DORNFEST  

Asha Dornfest is a writer and community organizer based in Portland, Oregon. She launched the Parent Hacks blog in 2005 as a real-world alternative to ‘expert’ parenting advice, and the platform took off, gaining a readership of thousands and winning awards as well as international press coverage. In 2016, Asha collaborated with Workman Publishing to create Parent Hacks, an illustrated collection of the best hacks from the blog. She also co-hosts the Edit Your Life podcast with Minimalist Parenting co-author Christine Koh. 

• Parent Hacks
• Parent Hacks on Instagram
• Edit Your Life Podcast
• Asha on Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Parent Hacks: 134 Genius Shortcuts for Life with Kids by Asha Dornfest

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?

Rita Kakati Shah is on a mission to support women in returning to the workforce through Uma, a startup that gives mothers the tools to rediscover themselves and find jobs that match their credentials—and their lifestyle commitments.

Today, Rita joins me to explain how her own frustration around going back to work served as the inspiration for Uma. She shares Uma’s mission to empower women with the confidence and emotional readiness to reenter the workforce, offering advice around developing your swagger and scenario planning for childcare. Listen in for Rita’s insight on how entrepreneurship is just a different kind of motherhood and learn how society benefits when moms are supported in returning to the workforce!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/075.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT RITA KAKATI SHAH

Rita Kakati Shah is the Founder and CEO of Uma, a professional training and coaching firm that empowers women to reenter the workforce after taking time off to raise children. Rita began her career as an investment banker, working for Goldman Sachs in London for a decade before transitioning to the healthcare industry. She is a fierce advocate for diversity and equality issues, earning the prestigious Excellence in Citizenship and Diversity Award for her outstanding contributions to diversity initiatives at Goldman Sachs.

• Uma
• Uma on Twitter
• Uma on Facebook
• Uma on Instagram
• Uma on LinkedIn
• Email info@beboldbeuma.com

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified’ in Harvard Business Review
• Article on Promoting Men vs. Women
• Renée Warren on Startup Pregnant EP074

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant

Renée Warren was depleted and depressed. She had a terrible relationship with her husband and felt little connection to her two boys. What WAS working in her life? The PR agency she had founded was thriving, surpassing its goals and growing to a team of 10. Renée wondered what might happen if she applied a business philosophy to her home life…

And that changed everything. 

Renée and her husband started holding weekly meetings and quarterly retreats, setting goals for the family based on the values that are important to them. They have scheduled offline time with the boys every evening from 5-6pm, and they have even gone so far as to compose a Family Operations Manual that keeps things running smoothly when they are away.

Today, Renée joins me to share her crazy parenting journey, discussing the challenges of having her two sons in the first year of her PR business. She explains how her decision to treat family life like a business eventually became a business of its own, the Family Academy platform. I ask Kate about the details of her family’s weekly meetings and quarterly retreats, and she describes how ‘role rating’ has strengthened her relationship with her husband. Listen in for Kate’s insight on spending quality time with your partner and kiddos—and learn how your family life can flourish by implementing business systems and best practices!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/074.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT RENÉE WARREN

Renée Warren is the founder of Family Academy, a community for entrepreneurial families. Prior to Family Academy, Renée launched popular startup PR firm Onboardly. She is a regular contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine, and Renée has written hundreds of blog posts, articles and eBooks on the topic of startup marketing. Her current mission is help over 1M entrepreneurs gain more freedom in their lives through the Family Academy platform.

• Family Academy
• Family Academy on Instagram
• Renée on Instagram
• Renée on Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Summit Series
• University of Michigan Study

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup P

There’s nothing wrong with fear in and of itself. The problem is when we respond with fear-based habits like perfectionism or self-sabotage and get stuck in our fear.

Kate Swoboda has built her coaching practice on the principle that these fear-based habits can be replaced with courage-based behaviors, that we can be afraid and do it anyway. And responding differently to the fear is what facilitates real transformation. 

So, how do we go about building this courage habit?

Today, Kate joins me to explain how she created her coaching business and why she designed the Courageous Living Coach Certification program. She shares the inspiration for her book, The Courage Habit, outlining the 4 courage-based behaviors you can cultivate in daily life. I ask Kate about the frustrating time she spent working with a fertility specialist, and she speaks to her surprise at finally getting pregnant without medical intervention. Listen in for Kate’s insight on adopting a particular parenting philosophy and learn how to approach fear as part of the process—and foster the courage habit in your own life! 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/073.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by Alavita Nutrition, a tremendous resource when it comes to food, health, and wellness. The Alavita team is on a mission to make eating good food and understanding nutrition easier for busy moms. Head to https://www.alavitanutrition.com/ and use the code ‘startup pregnant’ for 20% off their self-paced programs or a nutrition consultation.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT KATE SWOBODA

Kate Swoboda is a writer and facilitator in the realm of habit-formation and psychological courage. Her coaching practice, Your Courageous Life, centers around what she calls The Courage Habit—4 research-based behaviors for living with courage and resilience. Kate is also the creator of the Courageous Living Coach Certification program and the author of the book, The Courage Habit: How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life.

• Courageous Living Coach Certification
• Your Courageous Life
• Kate on Instagram
• Kate on Facebook

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• The Courage Habit: How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life by Kate Swoboda
• Courageous Living Program
• Lianne Raymond
• Stratejoy
• International Coach Federation

If you’re chewing on a tough problem, journaling is one way to get clear on how to proceed. There is something astonishing about how quickly the insights come when I take the time to put words to paper. But it can be difficult to know where to start or how to structure my writing in an effective way.

My good friend Mathias Jakobson of Think Clearly has developed a system of self-reflection in the form of Clarity Cards, and I use the 4 separate stacks as journal prompts to help me work through puzzles and determine next steps.

Today, I’m sharing my 4-step process of journaling for clarity with you, beginning with the practice of separating the facts from the feelings. Then I speak to analysis, explaining how I probe further to access the wisdom I already have and decide what action to take moving forward. Listen in with a problem in mind and harness the power of journaling to sort out your thoughts and get clear on what to do!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/072.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Think Clearly
• Think Clearly Card Decks
• Clarity Cards Order Form

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

Anna Gannon was 7½ months pregnant when she lost a job she loved as a full-time yoga teacher. She had struggled with depression off and on for most of her life, and Anna was worried that her precarious emotional state would have an impact on her baby.

That’s when Anna got an email from a friend who was supporting a project called Expectful. He encouraged her to try the Beta version of the meditation app for expecting and new moms, and she agreed to give it a shot.

Anna committed to 30 days of using the guided meditations, and not only did the practice help her connect with her baby, it also taught her that worry didn’t have to run the show. Anna learned that she is NOT her thoughts. And her third trimester became the BEST trimester of her pregnancy.

Today, Anna joins me to explain how using the Expectful app changed her experience of pregnancy and how meditation helped her navigate 9 months of postpartum depression. She shares the fundamentals of the app, describing how the guided meditations work and the benefits of training the mind to be more present. I ask Anna how she came to join the team at Expectful, and she discusses what work looked like in the early days of concurrently being a new mom AND new employee. Listen in for Anna’s insight on how parenting disrupts the illusion of control and learn how to let go—and allow life to flourish!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/071. 

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by sponsors like you! Consider supporting this podcast with a monthly donation on our Patreon page: Head to https://www.patreon.com/startuppregnant. We’ve got folks we call our ‘coffee friends’ who donate the equivalent of a cup of coffee each month to make this show possible, and we’re backed by companies we believe in that can help make the lives of busy entrepreneurs and parents a little bit easier. If you want to become one of our company sponsors, go to https://startuppregnant.com/podcast/ and get in touch!

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ANNA GANNON

Anna Gannon is the Co-founder and Community Lead at Expectful, a meditation app for women preparing to conceive, pregnant women and new moms. The Expectful team is passionate about making meditation as common as prenatal vitamins and creating health and wellbeing through the power of the mind-body-baby connection. Anna is also a Yoga Teacher and Meditation Guide, and her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Mindbodygreen and The Expectful Blog.

• Expectful
• Expectful Blog
• Anna on Instagram
• Anna on Facebook

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook

No one ever told me that ________ would happen in pregnancy. No one ever told me ________ about parenting.

Without a doubt, you have multiple responses to these fill-in-the-blank prompts. And when I asked the Startup Pregnant community to share what surprised them most about pregnancy and parenting, the answers were funny, thought-provoking, poignant—and raw.

Today, I’m sharing those responses with you, discussing the physical and emotional revelations that accompany becoming a mother as well as the impact the experience can have on your partnership. Listen in for insight around cultivating empathy for the wide range of pregnancy and parenting experiences and learn the immense value in sharing our stories! 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/070.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Startup Pregnant Blog

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST:

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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.

Today, Nisha joins me to explain 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. Listen in for Nisha’s take on the power of sisterhood to create a safe space for truth!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/069.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

This podcast is made possible by sponsors like you! Consider supporting this podcast with a monthly donation on our Patreon page: Head to https://www.patreon.com/startuppregnant. We’ve got folks we call our ‘coffee friends’ who donate the equivalent of a cup of coffee each month to make this show possible, and we’re backed by companies we believe in that can help make the lives of busy entrepreneurs and parents a little bit easier. If you want to become one of our company sponsors, go to https://startuppregnant.com/podcast/ and get in touch!

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NISHA MOODLEY

Nisha Moodley is the founder and CEO of Nisha Moodley International, an organization that facilitates retreats, masterminds and coaching for ambitious women with a focus on heart-mind-message alignment. She is also the founder of Global Sisterhood Day, a worldwide event celebrating and supporting the connections between women. Nisha is passionate about helping women step more fully into their role as leaders with an expanded sense of freedom.

• Nisha’s Website
• Global Sisterhood Day 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Soul of Leadership
• Priestess Presence
• Hiro Boga

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Review Startup Pregnant on iTunes

The first pillar of Startup Pregnant involves the podcast interviews I do every week with exceptional women, and if nothing else grew from this venture it would still be MORE than worth it to learn from the conversations we are having around business and parenting. But I recently launched the second pillar (and first paid offering associated with Startup Pregnant), the women’s leadership circle mastermind.

Today, I’m walking 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!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/068. 

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Why You Shouldn’t Give Up After One Launch

 
THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

‘My artistic voice has emerged stronger and more clear than ever—more centered in the voice of a mother and a female, really coming from within with an agenda. This I only have because of my kids. It feels like it was a necessary process, but it was fucking hard.’

Peng Scheerer’s experience of giving birth was a difficult one. The birth itself 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.

Today, 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. I ask her about her PhD work in the realm of feminine voices, and she describes what it means to be a mom in our capitalist, patriarchal world. Listen in for Peng’s insight on becoming part of what she calls a ‘rainbow family’ and learn how she and her husband negotiate parenting AND their work as creatives. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/067.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

This podcast is made possible by sponsors like you! Consider supporting this podcast with a monthly donation on our Patreon page: Head to https://www.patreon.com/startuppregnant. We’ve got folks we call our ‘coffee friends’ who donate the equivalent of a cup of coffee each month to make this show possible, and we’re backed by companies we believe in that can help make the lives of busy entrepreneurs and parents a little bit easier. If you want to become one of our company sponsors, go to https://startuppregnant.com/podcast/ and get in touch! 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT PENG SCHEERER 

Peng Scheerer is a freelance stage and costume designer for theatre and opera, working in performance venues all over Europe. In addition, she is pursuing a PhD in the realm of powerful female narratives and ‘disintegrating into a queer consciousness.’ She is also the author of the children’s book Two Mothers for Oscar which will be available on Amazon in August 2018.

• Peng’s Website

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Two Mothers for Oscar by Susanne Scheerer
• Dr. Shefali Tsabary on the Mindrolling Podcast

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast

There is a lot of noise on the interwebs around creating the perfect morning routine.

But here’s the thing about being a parent: There is no such thing as ‘routine.’ The demands placed on you by the tiny human in your life are ever-changing, and every morning looks vastly different from the one before.

I was interviewed for a book called My Morning Routine, and in it, I share my morning workout routine. The one I had before I became a mother. So, what do my mornings look like now? Is there even a way to establish some kind of routine in the mornings with a toddler running around?

Today, I’m discussing how I navigate the first few hours of every day now that I’m a parent. I share my recent epiphany around crafting a seasonal morning routine to fit what life looks like right now and offer insight on carving out time to write—in less-than-ideal circumstances. Listen in to find out how my husband and I divide parenting responsibilities, affording each other 30 minutes here and there to recharge, and learn how to design a morning routine that works for you this month, this week, or maybe just for today. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/066.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• My Morning Routine
• My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander 

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

Planning for maternity leave is a challenge for any working mother. But if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s all on you to figure out just how to keep the business moving forward—as your focus shifts to the delivery and care of a tiny human.

How do you decide what to automate? What to delegate? What to outsource? And how do you build those systems prior to the hard deadline that is the arrival of your baby?

Today, maternal health expert Arianna Taboada joins me to share 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. I ask Arianna about her personal parenting journey, and she explains how her business has 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. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/065.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT ARIANNA TABOADA

Arianna Taboada is a maternal health expert and consultant who helps female founders design maternity leave plans that meet their personal and professional needs. She has more than a decade of experience as a health educator, social worker, reproductive health researcher, and yoga therapist. Arianna also speaks and writes on the topic of maternity leave as a social justice and economic equity issue, and her scientific work around reproductive health has been published in peer reviewed journals including the International Journal of Health Equity, Advances in Social Work, and Prevention Science, among many others.

• Arianna’s Website
• Arianna on Twitter
• Arianna on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Arianna’s Eco-Map
• PL+US
• Arianna’s White Paper
• NPR Lost Mothers Series

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast

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.

Today, I’m sharing the five resources in my own mental health toolkit, discussing how these restorative practices recharge my batteries and keep me a little closer to sanity despite the stress and sleep deprivation associated with being a new mom. I explain the unparalleled value I find in therapy and the idea of using medication as one tool in your kit should that become necessary. Listen in for ideas on how to build your own robust toolkit for emotional resilience as you take on the demanding role of mompreneur!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/064.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode, the Transcend Podcast. Transcend is a monthly podcast dedicated to personal transformation hosted by Jeff Riddle. Head to http://transcendexperience.net/ for real stories of transformative experiences told by everyday people. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Kathleen Shannon on Startup Pregnant EP051

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

How do you do self-care as the mother of five?

How do you do self-care as a mother of five who happens to be running her own business?

How do you do self-care as a mother of five, running her own business AND a living on a farm that serves as an animal sanctuary?

You might be surprised to learn that it is not only possible—but can be done in just four minutes!

Today, Rebekah Borucki joins me to share the contrast in her pregnancy journey from the first child to the fifth and offer insight around what women need to know about the experience of motherhood. She explains how meditation saves her life every day and how she leverages the practice to reframe negative fantasy and understand her own power. I ask Rebekah about life on the farm and how she has transformed part of the property into a community learning space or Lady Church, and she discusses her approach to getting clear on what you want and saying NO to everything else. Rebekah gets real about setting boundaries, building a business that fulfills your purpose, and indulging in a little Netflix along the way. Listen in and learn how to build self-care into your life—in just four minutes!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/063.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we have launched a mastermind program for women from all walks of life who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To get on our email list for the 2019 session OR learn more about starting a group of your own, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT REBEKAH BORUCKI

Rebekah ‘Bex’ Borucki is the creator of BEXLIFE and the BLISSED IN wellness movement. She is the mother of five AND a TV host, yoga and meditation teacher, Hay House author, birth doula, and transformational coach. Rebekah travels extensively, sharing her passion for yoga, wellness, and meditation, and she has appeared on Dr. Oz, the Lisa Oz Show, and Better TV. She is a regular contributor to online and print magazines, including MindBodyGreen, Positively Positive, and Daily Burn, and Rebekah is the author of You Have 4 Minutes to Change Your Life. 

• Rebekah’s Website
• Rebekah on YouTube
• Rebekah on Facebook
• Rebekah on Instagram
• Rebekah on Twitter
• Rebekah on Pinterest
• Blissed In Facebook Group

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• You Have 4 Minutes to Change Your Life by Rebekah Borucki
• Be Here Now by Ram Dass
• Blocked 2 Blissed Group Coaching
• The New Bohemians

The sad and scary truth is that postpartum care in the US 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?

Today, I’m sharing my experience of the big event that is childbirth and what transpired in the months following. I walk you through the steps I took to build a network of support that helped me figure out breastfeeding, kept me nourished, and answered questions as they came up. Listen in for insight around the benefit of looking at postpartum recovery in three-month intervals and learn to adjust your expectations and plan ahead for the first 12 months of new motherhood.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/062.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• NPR Social Series: Maternal Mortality in the US
• La Leche League USA
• Shefali Christopher on Startup Pregnant EP061
• Lily Nichols on Startup Pregnant EP059
• Preparing for the First 30 Days Postpartum: What to Buy, Research, and Say
• Preparing for the First 30 Days Postpartum After a C-Section
• Replens
• Danielle LaPorte on Startup Pregnant EP034
• The Startup Pregnant Mastermind

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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.

Physical therapist Dr. Shefali Christopher was taken aback by the fact that her postpartum body didn’t quite feel like her own: ‘You’re learning how to be in touch with your muscles again, how to contract them again, how to work them again. I think that was more shocking to me … and it took a lot of work." 

Today, Shefali joins me to offer her insight on postpartum care for athletes, explaining the importance of rebuilding core strength and giving the body time to heal. I ask Shefali about her own experience with pregnancy and postpartum recovery, and she shares her ongoing efforts at ‘mental forgiving and acceptance’ of her postpartum body. Listen in for Shefali’s advice around the best resources for postpartum exercise and learn why she shifted her career path to pursue research as a new mom.

FULL SHOW NOTES: 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/061.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER 

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT DR. SHEFALI CHRISTOPHER

Dr. Shefali Christopher is a board-certified clinical specialist in sports physical therapy. After four years of teaching in the Duke DPT program, Shefali joined the Elon University faculty in June of 2017. Her clinical passion lies in treating triathletes and distance runners as well as helping postpartum athletes return to their sport safely. Shefali is currently pursuing a PhD through the University of Newcastle, and her research focuses on understanding and addressing pain in postpartum endurance athletes.

• Shefali at Elon University
• Shefali on Twitter 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Lily Nichols on Startup Pregnant EP059
• Jill Thein-Nissenbaum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Everymom Athletics with Christine Iverson
• British Journal of Sports Medicine Pregnancy & Postpartum Series

It’s tough enough for entrepreneurs to carry the psychological weight of being the key decision-maker in their business, but things are further complicated if you also happen to be a new parent. Now you’re under immense pressure to make good choices when you are functioning at less than 100%. How do you exercise the best possible judgement when you are sleep-deprived, and a tiny human is making regular demands on your time and attention?

There is a lot of cultural pressure to figure it all out on your own, but here’s the secret: You don’t have to. You can build communities of people around you and support each other in the decision-making process. You can connect with other new parents and entrepreneurs and puzzle it out together by way of a mastermind group.

Today, I’m sharing the working definition of a mastermind, its basic structure, and the myriad of benefits such groups can provide. In addition, I discuss the pros and cons of starting your own versus investing in a paid group. Listen in as I walk you thought the step-by-step process of launching a mastermind and learn the inestimable value of a community dedicated to mutual growth and improvement.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/060.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘Why You Should Join a Mastermind’ in Forbes
• Do You Have Your Own Personal Board of Advisors?
• Taylor Pearson on Masterminds
• The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons by Napoleon Hill
• Zoom
• Google Hangouts
• The Startup Pregnant Mastermind

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

We place a lot of emphasis on planning for the perfect birth and making sure that our bodies are healthy during pregnancy. But what do we need to recover after the baby arrives? What are the nutritional demands on us as new moms? How can we best prepare for the postpartum experience?

Despite being more prepared than the average woman, Registered Dietician and Nutritionist Lily Nichols was still blindsided by how long it took to recover postpartum. And she had a lot of questions about whether what she was experiencing was normal.

Today, Lily joins me to share her postpartum journey, discussing her extreme caution around physical exertion and the value in consulting a pelvic floor physical therapist for guidance. I ask her about the nutrients new moms need to heal damaged tissue and meet the energy demands of breastfeeding, and Lily offers her advice on postpartum prep by way of frozen dinners, meal delivery, or family members who like to cook. Listen in for insight on engaging a support system of other new moms and contacting the right professionals for reassurance as necessary.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/059.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood, and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT LILY NICHOLS

Lily Nichols is a Registered Dietician and Nutritionist and Certified Diabetes Educator with a passion for evidence-based nutrition. Her work draws from the current scientific literature as well as the wisdom of traditional cultures, and her expertise in prenatal nutrition makes her a well-respected consultant and speaker in the field. Lily’s latest book, Real Food for Pregnancy, is #1 in the Pregnancy and Childbirth category on Amazon.

• Real Food for Pregnancy
• Lily’s Website
• Lily on Facebook
• Lily on Twitter
• Lily on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols
• Lily on Startup Pregnant EP043
• Katy Bowman
• Preparing for the First 30 Days Postpartum

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook

Put two people in a room together for any length of time, and you’re going to encounter differences of opinion. Engage in any partnership—business, personal or parent-child—and differing experiences will eventually manifest a misalignment of wants and needs.

My husband and I encountered one such misalignment around checking in via text message during the workday: I’m a fan. It doesn’t cross his mind. Neither of us is right or wrong, here. We’re just different. The question becomes, is there a creative way to make us both happy?

Today, I’m sharing this case study in differences of opinion, describing the brilliant solution my husband conceived to address both our needs. I also discuss the value of getting clear on what you want and owning it rather than apologizing for it. Listen in for my five tenets of problem-solving and learn how to find creative solutions that provide the most happiness and satisfaction for everyone involved.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/058. 

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

‘It’s okay to just try something and see where it goes and see where it sticks, and it doesn’t have to be perfect when you launch it into the world. It’s never going to be perfect. It’s always going to be a work in progress.’

When Michele Hansen and her husband started planning for the birth of their daughter, they quickly realized that the high cost of daycare—a whopping $24K per year—was going to require an additional income stream. 

So, they created an app called Open Nearby as a side project. In the course of building that business, Michele and her husband uncovered a need in the market for geocoding software that translates addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates. They built that product too.

Four years later, Geocodio has grown to become Michele’s full-time gig. She has adopted a see-what-sticks approach to business, using jobs-to-be-done interviews with customers to improve their product and initiating meetups to support fellow entrepreneurs AND combat the loneliness of working from home. And the whole process happened organically.

Today, Michele sits down with me to explain how the expense of daycare inspired her entrepreneurial journey. She offers insight around how being a parent has made her more efficient with the use of her time and how Geocodio grew from a side project to become her full-time work. I ask Michele what it means to be a ‘product person,’ and she discusses the value of customer feedback in making business decisions. Listen in as Michele shares her efforts to help during Hurricane Harvey by creating a disaster relief map and her work-in-progress approach to entrepreneurship and parenting.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/057.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MICHELE HANSEN

Michele Hansen is the co-founder of Geocodio, a software product that supports high volume geocoding. Prior to becoming a full-time entrepreneur, Michele worked in financial services and political consulting, serving as Product Development Manager for The Motley Fool as well as Technical Project Manager for Engage, LLC. She helped organize the DC Jobs to be Done Meetup for the purpose of supporting businesses in her areas of expertise—product development and customer discovery.

• Geocodio
• Geocodio on Twitter
• Michele on Medium
• Michele on Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• DC Jobs to be Done Meetup
• Intercom
• Michele’s Hansen Post on Medium

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCA

Following Mother’s Day, I’d like to take a moment to honor the profound experience that is parenting—the unparalleled demands on your time, the general nonstop-ness of it all. Being a mom is overwhelming in the best way, and it qualifies as one of the biggest and messiest and strangest things I have ever done.

So many women—and men—deserve recognition on Mother’s Day, and today I am celebrating all of the people who love and nurture our children. Listen in as I offer my gratitude to everyone who shares in the responsibility of providing for growing humans and acknowledge the women who cannot have children or choose not to.

Parenting is life changing-ly difficult, so to those of you who are dedicating the time to grow, to raise, to provide for a new life: Thank you.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/056.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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.

Today, Laura joins me to share her parallel parenting and startup journey. She explains why she chose to self-fund Meet Edgar and the benefits of the SaaS model. I ask Laura about her company’s parental leave policy, and she describes the boundaries around work hours she has set for herself AND her team. Listen in as Laura gets real about how parenting didn’t come naturally to her and get her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/055.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT LAURA ROEDER

Laura Roeder is the founder and CEO of the social media automation tool Meet Edgar. Laura started freelancing at 22, and she founded LKR Social Media in 2009 to teach business owners how to harness the power of social media marketing. She was named one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under 30 three times—in 2011, 2013 and 2014. Laura launched Edgar in 2014, and the startup hit $1M in revenue within 11 months. Today, Edgar helps thousands of subscribers share their best evergreen content on social, and the company is worth $4M.

• Laura’s Website
• Laura on Twitter
• Meet Edgar

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast

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.

I have developed an approach that combines connection with a gratitude practice, a simple proactive approach to reaching out that has helped me rekindle old friendships and bounce back from the bad days when I’m feeling isolated.

Today, I’m sharing the two scripts I’ve designed for reestablishing friendships. I explain why it’s important to ask for specific advice and approach the practice with sincerity. Listen in and learn to stop scrolling and start making authentic connections!

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/054.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

 
RESOURCES 

• News Feed Eradicator for Facebook

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

Positive psychology asks us to focus on what’s right with us. What are your strengths? What are your values? What do you want?

But what if you’re not sure what’s right with you? We all have built-in negativity bias, so it’s a whole lot easier to identify what we don’t like about our lives, what we’re not satisfied with, than it is to define what is going well.

Alex Jamieson has your back. She’s designed The Fuck It List, a strategy giving you permission to honor the negativity bias and get all of the things you hate about your life down on paper. Then she flips the script and guides you in replacing the bad with a positive alternative, crafting a life focused on what you truly care about.

Today, Alex joins me to share the fundamentals of positive psychology and explain how she used its principles to create The Fuck It List. She discusses her life as a mom, describing her son’s sweetness and her own efforts to be more thoughtful of her actions. I ask Alex about her ability to set powerful boundaries, to take creative risks, and to build relationships with communities of women. Listen in for Alex’s insight around the value of masterminds in supporting women through change and learn to say fuck it as you work toward a life you love!

FULL SHOW NOTES: 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/053.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Community makes all the difference. So, at Startup Pregnant, we are launching a mastermind program for women who are interested in going deeper around questions about parenting, motherhood and business. To learn more and apply for the beta version starting in June, go to https://startuppregnant.com/mastermind.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ALEX JAMIESON

Alex Jamieson is a best-selling author, functional nutrition and positive psychology coach, and ‘cravings whisperer.’ She has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, and Dr. Oz, among many others, and she was the co-creator of the Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me. Alex’s podcast, Her Rules Radio, debuted at #1 on iTunes, and her latest book, Women, Food & Desire, was the #1 New Release in Spirituality and Self-Help on Amazon. 

• Alex’s Website
• Her Rules Radio
• Alex on Facebook
• Alex on Instagram
• Alex on Twitter
• Alex on Pinterest

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Fuck It List
• Women, Food, and Desire: Honor Your Cravings, Embrace Your Desires, Reclaim Your Body by Alexandra Jamieson
• Super Size Me
• Books by Alex Jamieson

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant

The sound of your baby crying? It’s intense. And when it’s your first child, chances are instinct has you scrambling to get to your kiddo immediately and take care of whatever it is that ails them.

But here’s the thing: You’re not just responsible for taking care of your new baby. You’re also responsible for taking care of you, and if that means your crying baby has to wait a minute or two while you finish washing your hair, it’s going to be okay.

Today, I’m sharing the advice I got from my friend Lindsay around crying babies and ‘fourth children’—advice that’s given me a lot of comfort as a new mom. Listen in as I share my approach to acknowledging my son’s not-so-subtle demands for attention while still making time for moments of self-care.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/052.

RESOURCES

• ‘The Pause’ on Startup Pregnant
• Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman

 
THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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.

After a visit to an insightful midwife, Kathleen learned that extreme sleep deprivation had her battery running dangerously low. And the fact that nothing else was working meant that something deeper was happening. The midwife prescribed anti-anxiety medication, and it saved Kathleen.

Today, Kathleen joins me to share her messy parenting journey, discussing her challenge in deciding whether to be a mom in the first place and her struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety. She offers insight around the beauty of daycare, explaining why she views it as an investment and how it has expanded her son’s capacity for love. I ask Kathleen about her work with Braid Creative and Being Boss, and she describes what branding is and when you should initiate the process. Listen in for Kathleen’s advice on managing mental health like a boss and learn how parenting influences her work—and vice versa.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/051.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT KATHLEEN SHANNON

Kathleen Shannon is the co-founder of Braid Creative and Consulting, a boutique branding agency that helps creative entrepreneurs position themselves as experts and blend more of who they are into the work they do. She is also the co-founder of Being Boss, a popular podcast and coaching resource for creative entrepreneurs, and co-author of the new book, Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work & Live Life on Your Own Terms.

• Braid Creative
• Being Boss
• Being Boss Podcast
• Kathleen on Instagram
• Kathleen on Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work & Live Life on Your Own Terms by Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson
• ‘One OKC Mom’s Child Care Journey’ in Metro Family Magazine

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email

"I can’t wait to get my body back."

We have complex relationships with our bodies. Women harbor certain expectations and assumptions about what our bodies are supposed to look like and what they are capable of. And it can be tough to come to terms with the reality when it doesn’t quite line up with what we had in mind.

I am making a conscious effort to pay attention to the language I use in reference to my postpartum body. To acknowledge what I am feeling about this new version of myself and be grateful about what my body CAN do.

In episode 49, Parijat Deshpande says, ‘You are the expert on your body—and you are not broken.’ Today, I’m exploring how we confront big questions around fertility and longevity, discussing the value of identifying our feelings as we deal with changing bodies through pregnancy, nursing, health complications and aging. Listen in for insight on reframing the way we think and talk about our bodies and acknowledging our complicated emotions.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/050.

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Instagram
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

You don’t know Murphy’s Law until you’ve heard the story of Parijat Deshpande’s high-risk pregnancy.

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.

Today, Parijat sits down with me to share her story, discussing the details of the medical complications she survived and the emotional extremes that came with extensive bed rest. She walks us through the harrowing weeks leading up to her son’s premature birth at just 24 weeks and the time he spent fighting for his life in the NICU. I ask Parijat how the pregnancy affected her work life and shaped the business she is building now. Listen in for Parijat’s take on the connection between personal healing and business growth and learn how she supports women in processing the grief and guilt associated with high-risk pregnancy.


FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/049.


EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.


LEARN MORE ABOUT PARIJAT DESHPANDE

Parijat Deshpande is a high-risk pregnancy expert, speaker and advocate for moms at risk for pregnancy complications and preterm birth. She combines her professional background in clinical psychology, wellness and lifestyle medicine with her personal experience with an extremely high-risk pregnancy to help women lower stress, have a safer pregnancy and reduce the risk of premature delivery. Parijat is also the founder and executive director of MySahana, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce stigma and increase awareness about mental health issues and wellness in the South Asian community.

• Parijat’s Website
• Parijat on Facebook
• Parijat on Instagram
• Parijat on Twitter
• Delivering Miracles Podcast

 
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Endometriosis Info
• Premature Birth Info

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup P

We all know the importance of goal-setting. Clearly defining your objectives is key to achievement.

But the way you frame those goals matters. Choosing targets that aren’t within your control (like getting pregnant) leads to frustration, helplessness—hopelessness, even.

How can we reframe those goals to reflect the things we can control? And make peace with the fact that we did everything we could, even if it doesn’t work out?

Today, I’m explaining the three spheres of influence and walking you through an exercise in goal-setting that puts the power back in your hands. Listen in for case studies in rewriting goals around growing your family AND your business that are within your control.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/048.

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

If you aren’t satisfied with the available options, Michelle Florendo suggests that you explore possibilities beyond the obvious.

Michelle was working as a management consultant, watching her colleagues make the difficult decision to sacrifice time with their children to continue a career they loved—or give up their careers to be present in their children’s lives. She realized that starting her own coaching practice would afford her more control and flexibility, but it was a risk.

Being risk-averse, Michelle gave herself a long runway and launched her firm long before she began the process of trying to get pregnant. But in her eyes, it was a bigger risk to do nothing. She had to find an avenue for getting the life and career she wanted.

Today, 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. I ask Michelle about her decision to become a parent and the choices she made around giving herself space to be present during her pregnancy. She speaks to the ‘silence of the first trimester,’ offering insight on the language we use to take fault for the parts of pregnancy and miscarriage we can’t actually control. Listen in for Michelle’s wisdom around choosing the narrative for any given situation and making decisions based on the information we have.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/047.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Hippo Give! Hippogive is a new app that donates your change by rounding up your everyday transactions to the nearest dollar and gives it to the charities and non-profits of your choosing.

If you’ve been wanting to donate to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, or disaster relief you can use this app and it’s a piece of cake. All you need to do is create an account, choose your charity and then set a weekly donation cap. Head to HippoGive.com to sign up.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MICHELLE FLORENDO

Michelle Florendo is a Type-A management consultant and Fortune 500 brand marketer turned career coach. Michelle founded What If You Could in February of 2012, and she has become known for her analytical approach—employing a blend of decision engineering, design thinking and the lean startup method to help her clients craft fulfilling careers. Michelle has an MBA from UC Berkeley, and she was named to the 2015 FWN Global 100 list of most influential Filipinas in the world.

• Michelle’s Website

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• StrengthsFinder
• Steph Jhala on Startup Pregnant
• Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions by John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney and Howard Raiffa
• altMBA

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant

The first days and weeks after bringing home baby are tough. Postpartum You may seem all peaceful and serene to friends and family who stop by, but they don’t have the slightest idea just how overwhelmed you really are on the inside. 

People want to help, but they don’t always know what to do. And 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.

Today, I’m walking you through three simple documents that will protect your time and energy and communicate your boundaries and expectations. Listen in for insight on creating House Rules, How to Help, and Favorite Foods inventories and learn how to convey your need to refuel and recharge during the postpartum period.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/046.

RESOURCES 

• Postpartum Lists Blog Post
• Seamless
• Grubhub 

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

Despite our best efforts to be prepared, life happens.

Case in point, I planned a trip to be there for my sister during her birth, but Baby was working on his own timeline and had yet to arrive at the end of my scheduled week in the Bay area.

Society claims to value flexibility and laud the ability to adjust on the fly, yet somehow when it comes to pregnancy and birth, we view it as an inconvenience. What if we learned to see the unpredictability of it all as an opportunity—to gather data, make projections and then pivot as necessary? What if we stopped trying to maintain such a tight grip on control and developed the skills necessary to plan for things that don’t have specificity?

Today, I’m celebrating the honest conversations we’ve had in my first 25 interviews on Startup Pregnant and sharing my insight on pregnancy and childbirth—being in the thick of it again with my sister this past month. Listen in for my take on the illusion of control, our lack of candor around the hard work of pregnancy and childbirth, the significance of taking the time to recover, and the dedication required to breastfeed your baby.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/045.

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

So you’ve gotten off track and you want to make a change—in your eating habits, your exercise regime, or maybe implementing a daily practice like journaling. Sweeping transformation is rarely effective and beating yourself up for a lack of discipline seldom results in positive change. What CAN you do to shift your habits and get back on the path you want?

In Episode 43, Lily Nichols talked about real food and nutrition, and the conversation reminded me of a strategy I use to shift my eating habits when I’ve strayed from my usual healthy routine. Today, I’m sharing the method I use to get un-stuck when the Dunkin’ Donuts downstairs has become a little too convenient.

I explain how making one small, positive change can shift your mindset and help you slowly shift your habits. Listen in for insight around applying this tactic to other areas of your life and ‘sneaking in the side door’ of positive change.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/044.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

‘What I like 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? They simply don’t reflect 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.

Registered Dietician and Nutritionist Lily Nichols is familiar with the science, having reviewed 934 studies for her newly-released book, Real Food for Pregnancy. And she believes that we need a more holistic approach to nutrition, an approach that includes mindful eating and a focus on pairing carbohydrates with fat and protein to acquire the nutrients necessary for fetal development from our food.

Today, Lily joins me to share her path to becoming a dietician, explaining how she established her practice and what inspired her to become an author. She discusses how her own pregnancy affected her work and her current ‘pieced together’ childcare plan. Lily speaks to the fact that conventional nutrition policy doesn’t reflect science and offers her advice around nutrition during pregnancy. I ask her about postpartum nutrient needs and special considerations for pregnant women who exercise a great deal. Listen in for insight into Lily’s writing process and her emphasis on the value of mindful eating.

FULL SHOW NOTES 

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/043.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Aeroflow Breastpumps. They are dedicated to making the hassle of getting your breast pump a little bit easier—actually, a lot easier! Head to www.aeroflowbreastpumps.com/startup to have them help you qualify for a free breast pump through insurance. 

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT LILY NICHOLS

Lily Nichols is a Registered Dietician and Nutritionist and Certified Diabetes Educator with a passion for evidence-based nutrition. Her work draws from the current scientific literature as well as the wisdom of traditional cultures, and her expertise in prenatal nutrition makes her a well-respected consultant and speaker in the field. Her first bestseller, Real Food for Gestational Diabetes, has helped tens of thousands of women manage the condition and influenced nutrition policies internationally. Lily’s new release, Real Food for Pregnancy, is #1 in the Pregnancy and Childbirth category on Amazon.

• Real Food for Pregnancy
• Lily’s Website
• Lily on Facebook
• Lily on Twitter
• Lily on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols
• Real Food for Gestational Diabetes by Lily Nichols
• California Diabetes and Pregnancy Program

 
With choice comes revolutionary change.

As women have experienced an ‘expansion of options’ in terms of marriage and family, there are a growing number of single ladies. As of 2009, less than 50% of American women were married, and the median age for a first marriage had risen from 22 to 27. Also, women are increasingly opting to have children outside of marriage.

What are the implications of this revolution?

In Episode 41, Toi Smith spoke about her challenges in developing a support system as the single mother of four boys. Today, I’m exploring the ideas in Rebecca Traister’s book, All the Single Ladies, and the opportunities for entrepreneurs to serve parents and single mothers by addressing their unmet needs.

I discuss CoAbode, a platform founded on the idea that ‘two single mothers raising children together can achieve more than one going it alone,’ and the role of single women in history. Listen in and learn how growing choice has caused the seismic shift in what family looks like in our country and the opportunity this provides for entrepreneurs inspired to help build for the future.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/042.

 
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• CoAbode
• All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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. Through her service, Smith Virtual Business Partners, Toi seeks to uplift, support and liberate women, helping them stand tall in the belief that they are powerful beyond measure—in business and all other aspects of life.

Today, Toi sits down with me to explain her role as an online business manager and how she came to do this work. She walks us through some of her values, from the idea that financial security is non-negotiable to her aim in fortifying women to flourish. I ask Toi about the parallels between birthing a child and a business, and she shares her personal challenges around becoming an entrepreneur as the single mother of four boys. Listen in for Toi’s insight on the differences among single moms, the changing landscape of the American family, and developing actionable strategies for resilience.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/041.


EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

 All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TOI SMITH

Toi Smith is a creator, a mother, and a holistic online business manager who helps women and people who identify as women grow their online businesses. In her ten-year corporate career, Toi learned to develop systems and streamline processes, and now she is leveraging those skills to help female small and microbusiness owners do their best work and reap the highest financial rewards possible.

• Smith Virtual Business Partners

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• ‘Not All Single Mothers Are Created Equal’ in Solo Parent Magazine
• Life Coach Kate Anthony
• All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister
• CoAbode
• Headspace

 
THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter

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?

In Episode 39, Val Geisler shared her framework for wielding the power of NO. Today, I’m taking a closer look at this idea, offering my four best strategies for turning down requests gracefully and using language with a built-in NO.

I explain the benefits of getting clear on what you want, avoiding empty promises, and creating boundaries in your own life. Listen in for insight on the social conditioning that makes us fear NO and learn how earn respect by being more strategic with your time.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/040.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Val Geisler on Startup Pregnant
• Implicit Bias Study
• Sara Mauskopf on Startup Pregnant

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

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. 

Val has a wealth of experience, having worked in corporate America, the startup world, and as an entrepreneur with her own VA and project management businesses. Today, she shares how all of these endeavors have culminated in her current venture, a co-working space for parents with onsite childcare. She offers insight around hiring and training a team, explaining how her first pregnancy facilitated her transition from freelance VA to online business manager. Val walks us through her experience with the startup ConvertKit, discussing how maternity leave looks different as an employee versus entrepreneur. Listen in for Val’s take on why new moms need to know that their work matters and how motherhood and entrepreneurship have changed her for the better.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/039.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VAL GEISLER

Val is a digital strategist who specializes in email copywriting and email marketing strategy. She uses email to generate leads and close more monthly recurring revenue for her clients. Val is also the author of The Dinner Party Strategy, a guide to designing a superior customer service experience, and her work has been featured on Meet Edgar, Teachable, ConvertKit, Fast Company and The Huffington Post. Currently, Val is developing The Hive, a coworking space with onsite childcare for freelancers and entrepreneurs.

• Val’s Website
• Val on Facebook
• Val on Twitter
• Val on Instagram
• The Hive

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Book Notes: How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter
• Sponsor the Podcast
• Sponsor t

The pressure to be perfect can stop us from putting our ideas on paper—or screen, as the case may be. But if you follow Tara Gentile’s wisdom and reframe your writing as the beginning of a conversation that invites others weigh in, that can be a game-changer.

Welcome to another of my experiments on the Startup Pregnant Podcast: For the month of March, I’ll be sharing a mini-episode that follows each of my long-form interviews, doing a deep dive into one of the topics that came up in the previous episode and offering listeners a useful strategy or actionable application of the guest’s advice.

In Episode 37, Tara Gentile described her ‘call and response’ approach to the writing process. Today, I’m digging into this concept, explaining how collaboration makes my writing better.

I also walk through the three phases of the writing process, describing how each piece requires a different part of my brain and why it’s useful to separate ideation, execution and editing. Listen in as I break down the writing process, offering tips and tools to help you start a conversation of your own.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/038.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Startup Pregnant Episode 37
• Jeff Goins
• Captio App
• Evernote

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
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• Sponsor the Podcast
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com

#037 — Putting Your Mission Back In The Driver's Seat 

With Tara Gentile 

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.

Today, Tara shares how losing out on a promotion during maternity leave inspired her start her own business. She explains how her business has evolved over time and offers insight around retiring products, hiring employees and putting on live events. I ask Tara about her writing practice, and she speaks to the call-response approach she employs to facilitate conversation among the CoCommercial community. Listen in and learn about how the flexibility of entrepreneurship enables Tara’s atypical co-parenting situation and what her daughter is teaching her about herself.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/037.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Acuity Scheduling. Acuity functions as an online assistant, helping to organize your schedule and collect client information. Take advantage of Acuity’s 45-day free trial for Startup Pregnant listeners at https://acuityscheduling.com/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TARA GENTILE:

Tara is the founder of CoCommercial, a social network for microbusiness owners that brings together coaches, consultants, educators, designers and makers who are passionate about taking control of their livelihoods in the New Economy. Tara’s work has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes and Inc., among many others. She is a sought-after speaker on the topics of money, marketing and entrepreneurship, a bestselling CreativeLive instructor, and the author of several books on doing business today. Tara is also the host of Power. Profit. Pursuit., one of the top 24 women-hosted podcasts for business owners.

• CoCommercial
• Tara on Facebook
• Tara on Twitter
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Medium
• Profit. Power. Pursuit.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Tara’s Books
• Tara on Creative Live
• Marie Poulin
• Gusto

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pr

If you don’t use your voice to share your experience, to call out prejudice and promote social justice, are you part of the problem?

Tepsii contends that you are, and she is in the process of rebranding her business to add activism to the platform.

I’m living the ‘learning out loud’ core value today as Tepsii and I get into a dialogue about race and privilege. We talk about the lifetime of work necessary to heal intergenerational patterns tied to self-image—that cannot be resolved in a single mindset session.

Tepsii shares her approach to raising little ones with an awareness of race and class, explaining how the conversations are driven by the children themselves. I ask Tepsii about her experience with microaggressions, and she offers insight around what it feels like to have your culture become the fodder for laughter. Listen in to understand Tepsii’s take on encouraging conversation about race and learn how she is incorporating social justice into her brand as a copywriter and business consultant.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/036.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:

We are putting together a weekly newsletter discussing the joys, the pains, the difficulties and the really useful strategies that make motherhood and work a little more joyful. Sign up at https://startuppregnant.com/newsletter. If you’ve got something in particular that you want us to work on, send us a note at hello@startuppregnant.com.

 All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TEPSII:

Tepsii is a copywriter and business strategist who helps entrepreneurs create businesses they love. She is the creator of Tepsii’s Online Business School and Write to Profit, a revolutionary DIY copywriting program. Tepsii specializes in sales copy that converts, and clients use her sales pages to generate $100K product and program launches. She is also a passionate advocate for underserved communities, working to integrate activism into her teaching and speaking platforms. 

• Tepsii’s Website
• Tepsii’s Freebies
• Tepsii on Facebook
• #CopyBesties Facebook Group
• Tepsii on Twitter
• Tepsii on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• USC Grammy Study
• Dee Laylor’s Work
• Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation by Derald Wing Sue
• Chris Rock’s Good Hair
• ClickFunnel’s Rap Video
• Patti Digh’s Art of Activism Book Club

To do your best work for clients, you have to be taken care of yourself. Yet so many entrepreneurs struggle with asking for the sale.

We hide. We play small. We fail to follow up.

Tepsii understands the ongoing challenge of changing your money mindset and learning to value yourself and the work you do. Though she understood marketing conceptually, her first entrepreneurial ventures were unsuccessful because she wasn’t consistently putting herself out there.

But when Tepsii started using live video as a tool, her brand skyrocketed. She shared her triumphs and challenges, and as people invested in her life, they wanted to work with her. Tepsii’s next challenge was learning how to charge what she was worth.

Now Tepsii coaches other entrepreneurs to #askforthedamnsale. Today she shares her unique parenting journey, discussing the differences among her daughters and how the birth of her youngest inspired her to start an online business. I ask Tepsii how she learned to market her business and what holds entrepreneurs back from playing big. Listen in for insight around getting obsessed with your own success and consistently asking for the sale.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/035.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:  

We are putting together a weekly newsletter discussing the joys, the pains, the difficulties and the really useful strategies that make motherhood and work a little more joyful. Sign up at https://startuppregnant.com/newsletter. If you’ve got something in particular that you want us to work on, send us a note at hello@startuppregnant.com.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.


LEARN MORE ABOUT TEPSII:

Tepsii is a copywriter and business strategist who helps entrepreneurs create businesses they love. She is the creator of Tepsii’s Online Business School and Write to Profit, a revolutionary DIY copywriting program. Tepsii specializes in sales copy that converts, and clients use her sales pages to generate $100K product and program launches. She is also a passionate advocate for underserved communities, working to integrate activism into her teaching and speaking platforms. 

• Tepsii’s Website
• Tepsii’s Freebies
• Tepsii on Facebook
• #CopyBesties Facebook Group
• Tepsii on Twitter
• Tepsii on Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Write to Profit Course

THE STARTUP PREGNANT PODCAST & HOST

• Startup Pregnant
• Startup Pregnant Newsletter
• Email hello@startuppregnant.com
• Startup Pregnant on Facebook
• Startup Pregnant on Twitter

“They’re not yours. They are their own soul, and you get the honor of caring for them. They’re their own person, and it is not their job to please you in any way, shape or form.”

Danielle LaPorte’s intuitive nature informs her parenting style, and she shares her spirituality with her son—despite the eye rolling. In fact, her parenting journey began with an overwhelming desire to be a mom that she followed as soon as it arrived, despite the fact that this didn’t fit into her predetermined life plan. And knowing that she might have to live off credit cards for the first two or three years.

Danielle’s next-level understanding of consciousness is the foundation of her parenting philosophy, a philosophy that includes truthbombs like: no shaming, no lying, no psychological game-playing and no pushing your child to be what YOU want. Rather, Danielle encourages parents to pay attention to what their children love and avoid the cynicism and sarcasm.

Today Danielle 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. I ask Danielle about the solitude of entrepreneurship and solo parenting, the significance of cultivating adult female friendships, and the value of meditation and pleasure in living a full life. Listen in and learn how to develop a parenting style that is informed by your belief system and honors you child’s soul.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/034.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:

We are putting together a weekly newsletter discussing the joys, the pains, the difficulties and the really useful strategies that make motherhood and work a little more joyful. Sign up at https://startuppregnant.com/newsletter. If you’ve got something in particular that you want us to work on, send us a note at hello@startuppregnant.com.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT DANIELLE LAPORTE:

Danielle LaPorte is an inspirational speaker, bestselling author and rockstar entrepreneur. One of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, Danielle’s work focuses on conscious goal-setting and spiritual devotion. Her website is on the list of Forbes Top 100 Websites for Women, and Entrepreneur Magazine calls her ‘equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass.’

• Danielle’s Website
• Danielle on Instagram
• Danielle on Facebook
• Danielle on Twitter
• Danielle on Pinterest

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Danielle’s 5 Collections
• White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping It Real on Your Spiritual Path—from One Seeker to Another by Danielle LaPorte

Becoming a parent is a transformative experience. And an ideal parental leave policy would offer support before, during and after your time off.

What if your organization went so far as to provide an advocate—someone who was prepared to communicate your point of view in your absence and keep you informed of the most important developments at the office? What if you could return to work feeling engaged and empowered?

Karina Mangu-Ward and her partner Tracy Candido are just returning to work from parental leave, and they both happen to work for organizations that focus on the future of work. In fact, Karina chose to join the team at August Public because of their 16-week parental leave policy. August is built on the principle that everyone has the ability to edit the system, and that gave Karina the opportunity to design her own parental leave. 

She established the idea of an advocate who would keep her goals top of mind and ensure that Karina was well-positioned in the organization when she returned. 

Today Karina explains the work of August Public, discussing how its framework of radical self-management allowed her to design her own parental leave. She speaks to the importance of parental leave (as opposed to ‘maternity leave’) and how men get shortchanged in a system that doesn’t allow them to participate. I ask Tracy and Karina for their insight on a Harvard Business Review article suggesting ‘disability leave’ for the person giving birth and an additional 12-week paid leave for all parents. Tracy addresses the need for psychological safety and open dialogue in the workplace as new parents navigate an identity shift. Listen in for Karina’s take on why startups can’t afford NOT to offer family leave.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/033.

EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:

Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Meet Edgar! Grab your free two-week trial of Meet Edgar, a social media scheduling tool that allows you to create content once and re-use it as much as you need, at http://ed.gr/startuppregnant.

All of our sponsor offers are available on our website for you to grab the perks and discounts offered to podcast listeners: http://startuppregnant.com/sponsors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TRACY CANDIDO & KARINA MANGU-WARD:

Karina Mangu-Ward is a consultant and facilitator with a passion for coaching teams through organizational transformation. In her current role with August Public, Karina works with Fortune 100 corporations to nurture more creative, self-managing and productive teams. Prior to her work with August, Karina was a documentary filmmaker and Lead Process Facilitator with EmcArts.

Tracy Candido is the Director of Programs and Events at Lower Manhattan HQ, a new collaboration space in the heart of downtown NYC. She curates public programs for the creative business community, promoting LMHQ as a thought leader in the conversation about the future of work. Tracy is also the founder of Lady Boss, a platform for professional growth for women in creative industries.

• Lady Boss
• LMHQ
• August Public

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘A

“[The fertility struggle] was hard for us both, but it was hard for us together. We were able to kind of knit our relationship, and knit our sorrow and our eventual success into something that made us stronger.”

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.’

The fertility struggle was a lesson in persistence and resilience. And at the end of the day, it brought Tracy and Karina closer.

Today Tracy and Karina share the story of their difficult parenting journey, explaining how it affected their relationship as well as their work lives. Tracy discusses the source of the partners’ intentionality and how they designed their own parenting model—without heteronormative standards to rely on. Tracy and Karina speak to the Imago communication style and how it helped them navigate a difficult period early in their fertility journey. I ask them about their 50/50 approach to parenting and their experiences with parental leave. Listen in for Tracy and Karina’s insight around returning to work and owning their roles as new moms.

FULL SHOW NOTES:

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/032.