This month, Fishbowl, a community of consultants and advisors, asked me to join them for a Motherâs Day Special to talk about juggling career and motherhood. In this episode, I am joined by Emma Sedlak, a senior strategic communications advisor and board member, who interviewed me about what it looks like to take on work and motherhood.
The question I hear all the time from parents is this: âHow do I do it all? How do I juggle it? How do I balance it?â This question implies that you're trying to squeeze everything you can out of all the stuff in front of you.
But the harder question is, what is uniquely you? And what don't you give a crap about? When you can define your unique weirdness in work and in life and in parenting, then you can cut out a whole lot more of the stuff you just donât care about. Caring about everything and trying to be everywhere at once wonât work. Doing it all is not a strategy. Hacks wonât make your life better. Focusing clearly on the few things that really matter to youâthatâs the key.
In this conversation, we discuss:
What Iâve learned from having 30+ jobs in my career so far.
How motherhood and work still donât fit together, and the absurd realities of working parents.
Why âhustle cultureâ is actually a very old idea that doesnât fit modern life.
What most companies get wrong about âstrategyâ and âproductivityâ
The way that you can apply strategic thinking to your life as a parent.
How to use guiding principles to make your parenting life easier.
Want to submit a question for a future episode?
Got a question you want me to take a look at, or just want to know my opinion on something? Go to startupparent.com/question and submit a question so I can answer it on an upcoming episode. If youâve got a situation in your life or business that youâd like some attention and feedback on, send me a detailed note using this form and tell me about your current situation. I pick challenges each month to unpack, discuss, and lend my brain to. I sift through the questions and answer as many as I canâand if I canât answer them, Iâll share them with people I trust to get wise feedback and council.
âAsk Sarahâ is a private monthly podcast for you to ask questions about business, life, parenting, or anything youâre curious about. This podcast is one of our perks for paid subscribers. When you upgrade your subscription to go paid, youâll get access to the previous conversations on parenting sleep, how discipline and willpower change as a parent, how I keep up with habit building when exhausted, a detailed case study on content marketing as a solo entrepreneur, and all future episodes. Plus, youâll get a private RSS feed, access to private viewings of some of my paid talks, exclusive chat forums and our book club conversations.
