Workin Moms Podcast: Recent Episodes
Workin' Moms
Workin’ Moms is a podcast about motherhood and work. We’re talking to business owners and career-driven women who love their kids but also love their work and want to make an impact. There’s nothing quite like being a working mother and constantly questioning whether you are doing enough in any area of your life. It’s a struggle that’s pretty unique to women and can feel very isolating and conflicting. We regularly deal with the questions that plague us:
How do you know if you’ve made the right decision to work after having children? Are you giving enough at home to your family? Is there a way to still succeed in your career? Is it selfish to want to work and not stay home? How do you stop feeling like a terrible person?
We don’t know the answers but we know that there is a community of ambitious women asking the same questions, every single day. So we’re asking and we’re having conversations with real women balancing work and motherhood and discovering what it means to have it all.
If everyone is taking care of the baby, who’s taking care of the mother? Agnes Mayer is a Labour and Delivery Registered Nurse and the owner of Mamabear Holistic Care, a business offering support services for new mothers.
Parents hire Agnes to navigate the unchartered territory of motherhood with Prenatal classes, CPR classes, Sleep coaching, Postpartum and Breastfeeding support. Her passion for helping Mamas comes from her experience both as an RN and as a Mama to one incredible boy, and they both share an immense love of Disney! Agnes started Mamabear Holistic Care to fill a void for new parents as they prepare for their journey into motherhood and parenthood.
We often wish our babies would simply tell us what they want, or that we could decipher their cries and babble. What if they are trying to communicate with us and there was a better way for us to understand each other?
Lee Ann Steyns is the owner of Signing Babies, a baby sign language education business which was born out of a need to help her two young children who were both colicky, fussy babies. Lee Ann has been teaching her own baby sign language classes to other parents in the community for nearly 18 years. As both a mom and educator, she's created a great balance of playful, light-hearted classes with an organized curriculum to keep things easy to learn for both parents and babies.
In this episode, of course we talk a lot about baby sign language and how Lee Ann teaches, but you’ll also hear about Lee Ann’s experience in starting and growing a business over the course of 18 years while raising two kids.
On this episode I’m sitting down with serial entrepreneur and new mom Sabrina Doumet, the founder and creative director of L’Atelier Coworking in Vancouver and The Focus Journal as well as Tiidii Living; her YouTube channel and lifestyle brand centered around organizing tips for your business and personal life.
During our conversation, we talk about how she started her multiple businesses and her advice for new entrepreneurs, how she finds balance with her family life, and some of the stigma surrounding working mothers, specifically business owners. Sabrina is currently working on launching an online course to teach moms how to start and run their own businesses.
If you’re a first time parent, you probably wonder about your child’s physical development. On this episode, I talk to an expert on the subject, Maegan Mak, a paediatric physiotherapist and the owner of Playworks Physio which specializes in working with kids from babies to age 18. Maegan talks about starting her clinic 2 years ago and quickly growing her team in the span of several months. She shares how as a first time mom, she's continued building a solid practice and pivoted quickly in light of COVID 19.
Sleep. It’s probably the biggest discussion topic for parents, and one of the biggest challenges for working parents. On this episode, I’m sharing my conversation with an expert on the topic - my client and reputable sleep consultant, Lara Rabb of Heavy Eyes Happy Hearts Sleep Consulting. Lara shares the story of how a sleep consultant drastically improved her life as a new mom and how she recognized that she could help other families in the same way. She talks about starting and growing her business with 2 kids, deciding when to leave her full time job, and the moves she made as her business has grown to make room for a balanced, fulfilling life beyond work. And of course we talk about sleep and how we can make adjustments to be more rested physically and emotionally. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Lara and are inspired by how she approaches motherhood and business with patience, transparency and empathy.
Entrepreneurs think of their businesses as their babies. So what happens when you’re having an actual baby on top of that? This episode features my first conversation with a working mom to be, my friend Jamie Munro, a talented filmmaker and the owner of Whisper Media. After building up a successful video production company and accomplishing significant career milestones with international brands, Jamie is getting ready to start a family AND maintain her business. This episode covers the full gamut of emotions for female entrepreneurs becoming moms: from pregnancy being the elephant in the room, to managing client expectations, to navigating the physical challenges that come with delivery and recovery, and why paternity leave should become more normalized. At the close of the episode, we talk about Jamie’s upcoming passion project, a documentary on an intimate look at motherhood.
On this episode, I’m exploring dual perspectives of a working mother's relationship with her child by chatting with Dwaina and Molly Sprague, the mother daughter design duo behind Good Space Plans Online and Dwaina Sprague Interior Design. These incredible women are strong feminists, innovative businesswomen and have the coveted Gilmore Girls mother-daughter relationship but in real life. Listen in on their thoughts on motherhood, their approach to reinventing interior design, and changing the way we think about home.
Episode Highlights:
- Becoming a mother at age 16
- The stay at home mom vs. childcare debate
- Maintaining a healthy personal and working relationship
- Defining boundaries
- Honest communication with kids about ideas around work
- What kids learn from working parents
- Being an observer vs. a manager as a parent
- Sitting through discomfort
- Creating a product out of a service with Good Space Plans
- Why home should be a priority
- Setting children up for success at home
"What if, instead of struggling to manage work/life balance, there was a place that was designed to make them easy, fun and inspiring? What if you could bring your kids to work with you? What if your workplace was more playful? What if integration is the new balance?"
On this episode, I chat with Madeleine Shaw, a social entrepreneur and the Founder of Aisle (formerly Lunapads), a line of reusable menstruation products and Nestworks, a family-friendly workspace. Madeleine is on a mission to make the world a better place over the course of her 27 years in business, and most recently has been trying to improve the lives of working parents. Enjoy this inspiring conversation about doing good, following your passions, and the future of work.
Episode highlights:
What social entrepreneurship means to her
Projects driven by a desire for change
Eco-feminism in business
Building a business with young kids in the office
The development of Nestworks
The myth of work-life balance
COVID-19 impacts on current work culture and predictions for the future
Motivating the next wave of social entrepreneurs
If you’re a mom, you might know our next guest… or at least her wildly popular children’s clothing and lifestyle brand PK Beans (formerly Peekaboo Beans). On this episode, I’m sharing my conversation with the powerhouse entrepreneur, advocate, philanthropist and mom of 2, Traci Costa. Traci started her business back in 2006 and has grown it into an internationally-recognized, publicly traded brand, driven by a powerful mission to foster playful living for children and families.
Episode highlights:
- Traci’s journey in starting and growing her company
- Employing and empowering working moms
- The 2008 recession, COVID-19 and pivoting in business
- Changing traditional gender expectations and female entrepreneurship
- The concept of Free Play and how to integrate it at home
- Using technology to your advantage
- Coping and thriving during COVID-19
On this episode, I welcome Jennifer Kolbuc, educator and social media expert at Mountain Top Consulting. Jen shares her story of taking the unexpected route of using her maternity leave to go big in her business. We explore what it's like to run a business with a newborn and how to find community and clients among other parents. Jen shares her tips on how to be a discerning user of social media from a personal and business perspective and how being authentic online can help grow your business.
Episode highlights:
- Starting a business during maternity leave
- Finding community and clients among working parents
- Time management as a working mom
- Giving up control when co-parenting
- The importance of maintaining a self care routine
- Teaching your children about your family work structure
- How and when to use Facebook groups
- The intersection of your personal and business lives on social media
Links:
Mountain Top Consulting
Mompreneur interview series
On this episode, I chat with Tasleem Jessani, Executive Coach. Tasleem Jessani is the owner of Rubiks Coaching where their vision is to make all leaders, managers and individual contributors perform to their highest potential and accomplish the goals they set out on a path to achieve. She has over a decade of experience in HR and is a mom of 2, so she knows the realities of being your own boss and running a company while managing a busy home life. Tasleem is an expert in working with female business owners and I thought she would have some very valuable insights to share with our audience.
Episode highlights:
- Maternity leave
- Postpartum Depression (Contact the Postpartum Society here)
- Transitioning back to work after maternity leave
- Recommendations to companies
- Work-life balance for female entrepreneurs
- The importance of setting boundaries
- Carl Jung’s theory on masculine/feminine
- Creating alignment in your life
- Juggling motherhood with employment vs entrepreneurship
- Modelling ideas around work to your children
Links:
Rubiks Coaching
On our first episode of the Workin’ Moms podcast, I tell you a little bit about myself and my journey as an entrepreneur becoming a mother.