#160 — A Day In The Life with Kelsey Kerslake of Pinegate Road 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 o...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast #159 — Think of a difficult conversation that you are in the middle of, or one that you’ve recently had. Maybe it’s onboarding a new team member, or working with a client. Maybe it’s with your partner or your spouse, and you're trying to negotiate all those logistics of parenting. Maybe it’s with the grandparents, your kids, your boss, a colleague—whoever it is, I am sure that you have had the experience of how challenging it can be to go through a hard conversation. For me, I avoid them. I pani...
Jun 01, 2020•44 min•Ep 159•Transcript available on Metacast #158 — 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 Caitlin Boland Aarab: she and her husband are both attorneys, and they own their own law firm in Great Falls, Montana. They have two kids at home and she's pregnant with their third kid. When everything shut down, the kids were sent home from school—but the courts wer...
May 25, 2020•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast #157 — My friend has an almost-two-year old and she asked me "So when do I need to think about potty training?" Yeah, as though you needed anything else to consider in the pandemic. Well, I took a few minutes to brain dump everything I remembered about potty training in a quick dash Voxer message to her, all while doing dishes and cleaning up the boys' room in our house. We both thought that these might be useful memos for you, especially if you happen to be in a similar situation. Consider this...
May 19, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast #156 — How do you push the reset button—that ability to feel like you've had a fresh cup of coffee, a good night of sleep, and you're ready to go at work? While we're all clawing at sanity and sobbing quietly into our fourteenth cup of coffee, it's really hard to find the capacity to work and keep your head above water right now. 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...
May 11, 2020•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast #153 — "Wake up everyone, it's a brand new day!" Today my children join me on this episode of the podcast to give you a snapshot of life in New York City quarantine with two working parents. 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...
Apr 27, 2020•31 min•Ep 153•Transcript available on Metacast #152 — I don't know about you, but I'm finding it mighty hard to even get started in the morning. I know these last episodes have all been about finding patterns and rituals amidst the madness, and it's for a reason—finding my new normal (or a sense of it) is all I feel like I can do right now. 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 F...
Apr 19, 2020•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast #151 — Making sense of days that make no sense requires new patterns, habits, and routines. For me, trying to muddle through the cacophony of work and children and non-stop days at home is very, very challenging to my brain. So, to help, I’ve been building small rituals into the day to start to cue myself that yes, work is happening now, and yes, it’s a new day. 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...
Apr 14, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast #150 — Every morning lately, I've been posting a selfie to my Facebook page and my Instagram page. Right now it feels like going to the coffee shop—I get to pop in, say good morning to people all around the world, check-in with my neighbors and parents and friends, and then start the day. In any other moment of my life, I would not have said that going on social media first thing would help me be more productive, but right now is not a normal time. So, from my quarantined home in New York City, ...
Apr 09, 2020•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast #149 — As we all adjust to the uncertainty and sudden shifts of what’s happening around the world with the global COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to share a few small rituals that we’ve used in our household to find a moment of normalcy in our lives. Yes, most of our life is chaos, and much of it is very different than it was a few weeks ago. Also, one of the hardest parts of all of this is the not knowing: not knowing when things will change or what the next few weeks and months will bring. In time...
Mar 31, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast #148 — During times of stress, everyone responds differently. Some of us laugh, some of us go into denial, some of us get agitated, some of us panic, some of us get to work. If you’re feeling a bit all over the place, I want to talk about how stress affects each of us differently and why these reactions are coming up. As you start to see how we each respond to stress, you can also start to see how the weird ways your coworkers and partners are reacting might actually be a perfectly normal respon...
Mar 25, 2020•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast #147 — Don't forget to exhale through all of this. If you're tired, scared, stressed, overworked, or feeling all the feelings, this episode is for every one of us. It's a short method to help catch your breath, tap into your body, and exhale away some of the tension. 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 ...
Mar 21, 2020•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast #146 — The next few days, weeks, and months are going to challenge us—a lot. Actually, the next twelve to eighteen months are going to be quite the ride, but let's just start here with where we are, today. Having everything suddenly shift and having our lives disrupted this much is a huge deal. How can we process and deal with it? In this episode I go over seven things to keep your mental sanity amidst all of this. This is just a starting point; feel free to write your own list, and stay kind, s...
Mar 16, 2020•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast #145 — Hey everyone, my family is staying home now for a while, and that means we are working from home with two kids and two parents no longer in school or at work. We're preparing for the coming weeks and the disruptions that are already happening in light of the spread of Coronavirus. In this episode, I'll share what we're doing to prepare for Coronavirus, what social distancing is and why it's important, and a few steps you can take to help not just yourselves, but your community. If you hav...
Mar 14, 2020•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast #144 — Should You Take That Online Course? How To Get Your Money’s Worth When Doing Virtual Courses 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. Onl...
Mar 09, 2020•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast #143 — Overwhelmed, Scared, Exhausted—A Note For You 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 mu...
Mar 02, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast #142 — Do you ever struggle with setting boundaries or saying no? Let’s talk about what to do when people ask you for things that you don’t want to do or you don’t have time to do. How do you handle the influx of requests in your inbox, or the deluge of “pick your brain” requests from family and friends? 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 reque...
Feb 24, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast #140 — How to design and facilitate group programs. 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...
Feb 17, 2020•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast #139 — Lately I’ve been fielding a lot of questions from people about what to expect in the shift from non-parenting to the parenting world. 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 mornin...
Feb 10, 2020•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast #138 — Why does my kid keep getting sick? 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 ...
Feb 03, 2020•27 min•Ep 138•Transcript available on Metacast #137 — Broadway and Pregnant 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...
Jan 27, 2020•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast #136 — Not everyone has exactly nine months to plan ahead and prepare for motherhood — sometimes it can happen overnight, and other times it can take years. The process of adopting a child can be long, laborious and fraught with uncertainty. You never know when you’ll get the call or how long it will take, or when you might become a parent. 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 j...
Jan 20, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast #135 — Is minimalism and motherhood possible? 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 foun...
Jan 13, 2020•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast #134 — Careers Twists and Turns 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 2...
Jan 06, 2020•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast #133 — What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? 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 a...
Dec 30, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast #132 — How To Streamline Your Business: New Minibook 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 plac...
Dec 16, 2019•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast #131 — What happens to the dud weeks? Weeks can go by where it feels like no progress is being made. 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 ...
Nov 18, 2019•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast #130 — Goal Setting, Making Progress, and Minibook Updates 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 tempora...
Nov 04, 2019•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast #129 — If you feel like you don't have enough time for it all, you might be right. 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 ...
Oct 14, 2019•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast #128 — What's it going to take? 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 n...
Oct 01, 2019•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
