From Doing It All to Doing What Matters: Redefining Work-Life Balance in Working Motherhood - with Ashley Chang (part 1)

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:04  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:27  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am very excited to announce today's guest and introduce you to her. We are here for our summer series. So we are continuing where we are having two conversations with amazing and inspiring women. And Ashley Chang is here with us. Hi, Ashley. I'm so excited, so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I can't wait to hear more about your story. I know we have some interesting similarities in our backgrounds, and I think we're both trying to solve problems for the same people in different ways, the executive moms who are tuning in are gonna learn from you and potentially be able to work with you in ways to help them. So thank you so much for being here. 

Ashley Chang  1:20  

Thank you. I'm Yeah, I think we have a very similar audience, and hopefully we can talk about some great tips that have worked for people we've worked with. And I'm just at the very beginning of my journey, so I'm hoping to learn from you as well. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:32  

Yes, congratulations. You have a three month old. 

Ashley Chang  1:35  

Yes, yeah, he'll be four months next week, just at the very beginning of parenthood. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:41  

Yeah, congratulations. So if you could start off, maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself and your story, your background.

Ashley Chang  1:50  

Yeah. I'm Ashley Chang. I'm the co founder and CEO of Sundays. Sundays is an executive assistant service for working parents. So we have an amazing team of executive assistants. They're almost all moms, and they're based in the US. And then we support families and executives at home and at work. So at home, we'll do a lot of things like meal planning, planning summer camps, making sure you actually have your summer camp logistics ready for next week. And then we also do a lot of traditional EA work stuff for people who have gone out on their own, and that to do list really blends together. 

Ashley Chang  2:22  

And then my background before this, I worked in the tech industry for a little bit over 10 years, mostly in product management roles. And most recently was at Carta, where I helped build their VC products, basically from scratch, and got to stick with them through scaling to around 10 million in revenue, which was really fun, and then left that to explore starting my own thing. And have always just cared really deeply about supporting women in the workforce, and especially moms. And my impetus for Sundays specifically with my own mom, who, the computer scientist in the 80s, and then when she had kids, felt like she couldn't balance both family and work, and there was no support to do it, and so she ended up staying home with us, which I'm super grateful for, but I know she missed out on a little bit of personal fulfillment outside of the home, and I think we all missed out on things that she and a lot of people in that generation could have contributed if there had been more support for them to be active in other ways. And when I entered the tech industry, saw very similar things still happening, even though it's 30 years later, and everything on my desk today was invented in that time, we saw really very limited support for parents at work. And so let's just try to see if we can solve that problem.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:36  

Yeah, I love that. So your mom was a stay at home mom mine, too. She was a computer scientist, and then you decided to follow in her footsteps, sort of?

Ashley Chang  3:49  

A little bit, yeah. It's funny. So I think I was telling you before, I have two sisters. I'm one of three girls. I'm the oldest, and I am actually the only non engineer in my family, technically. So everybody else studied some form of engineering. I studied genetics in college, actually, but then leaving college felt like I liked genetics for the science aspect of it, but I wanted something that I could have more impact on people more quickly. And I found tech through a little startup nonprofit called Watsi, and was just so excited about being able to scale the same experimental mindset, but more quickly with software.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:22  

Yeah. Why genetics? When you went to college, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you want to do with that?

Ashley Chang  4:30  

I don't know that I had a this is what I want to be when I grow up. It was more just like curiosity, like I wanted to understand more about, like, how people work and what how did like the our systems work at the most basic level, which is kind of interesting, because as I've gotten more into the technology world, there is very similar building blocks of like code in the world I work in today, and genetic code for how humans work, too. But the human part is a lot more complicated and a lot more mystery to it still, I think. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:59  

Yeah, for sure, it's interesting, because I went to college to be a math teacher, then I ended up majoring in psychology. Similarly, because I was like, I just want to learn how people work in a different way. I don't think I would have thought about genetics, because I was so interested in, like, the behaviors and the why do people do the things that they do? And also, the oldest of three girls as well, so there's something about that.

Ashley Chang  5:25  

Yeah, it was really interesting. I was in this, like Honors Program in college, and they might have been the way they selected people, but every single person was the oldest child. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:36  

Interesting. 

Ashley Chang  5:37  

It was very interesting. It was like there must have been some shared characteristic of being an older child that showed through in their application process.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:45  

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, the oldest child is usually, like, tends to be more people pleasing, tends to be more achievement oriented. And I don't know if you felt this, but I always felt like I need to, like, carry the torch for my sisters and my family and, you know, like, I'm representing our family name, like I gotta do this right.

Ashley Chang  6:05  

Yeah, I definitely felt some of that. And then I also think that you just get used to being in uncertain situation, like you don't know what's coming, right, like you're the first one to do everything. And I didn't have any older cousins or anything like that either. So I was always like, Okay, well, I have no idea what Middle School is like, so I guess I'm just gonna, like, show up and see how it goes. And my sisters have benefited a little bit of having some foresight into what things were like after my experiences. But I think that's been helpful in the rest of my life, where I got a little bit used to just like, jumping into the unknown and trying to figure it out. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:41  

Yeah, that's probably really helpful in entrepreneurship. 

Ashley Chang  6:44  

Yeah, I think so it's a helpful practice. And I reflect on that a lot, that I feel lucky to have had that experience earlier on my life.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:51  

Yeah, for sure. And we'll talk more about Sundays in our second episode. And I can't wait to hear all about it and how you created it and how you came up with the idea for it, but it is really unchartered territory, right? It's a newer concept, I think. I mean, I haven't heard of other companies that are doing this, and so maybe having that experience your whole life of going first and jumping into unchartered territory has really kind of set you up perfectly to do something like this.

Ashley Chang  7:22  

Yeah, when I think about it, it's like, somewhere in the middle. It's not like a moonshot VC backed company where you're like, well, this work, or won't it work? But it is kind of a new take on a type of company that I've seen before, but really focusing on combining family and work together, which I think is more of just very relevant to like, how we are living our lives today. And I think especially after COVID, a lot of that has blended even more together for people.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:48  

Yeah, and now you are in California. Are you in the Bay Area?

Ashley Chang  7:53  

Yeah, I am in the Bay Area. I was in San Francisco until January, and then moved to Oakland now just before having a baby. And I also grew up in California. So I grew up a little bit south of San Francisco in a town called Belmont by the airport, and was there most of my life, and then went to college and came back to this area. I always imagined I was going to move away, but kept finding jobs around here, so I stayed.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  8:18  

Yeah, well, I spent two years in the Bay Area when I studied at San Jose State for grad school. And was interesting, because it was like, I mean, I grew up in Pennsylvania, I went to undergrad in West Virginia, so like, those were the two experiences I'd had thus far. And I just felt like there was just a different vibe there, of like, everyone was thinking about, what company can I start? Or, like, what problem can I solve? And I wonder, how do you attribute your desire for entrepreneurship and starting your own thing as part of where you grew up and like the culture there?

Ashley Chang  8:55  

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. It's hard to say because I've been in this place for so long. I have some good friends who just have lived in like every, not every city, but like Austin and in New York and a bunch of different places. And they just came back to San Francisco because they were like, the mentality in San Francisco is really different around creativity and feeling like you can start things. Yeah, I do think that's true. My dad also was an entrepreneur growing up, so he makes medical devices very different than what we do, but you, too.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:23  

Yes, oh my gosh. I know my dad is also is an entrepreneur in the medical device industry. Yes.

Ashley Chang  9:30  

Yeah, that is crazy. So all through my childhood, my dad started out working at a bigger company, and then he mostly has made heart valve replacements, and then now he's doing like something in the eye space, but saw him go through a bunch of different companies that he started, and medical devices are really capital intensive, and so they in contrast to what I'm doing now, it's much more up and down where, like, if you can fundraise, then you have the money to go really pursue this crazy new device that might be life changing for so many people. And then if you can't fundraise then like, that's kind of the end of the company. So saw him go through that experience a few times, and some of them worked and some of them didn't work. And I think just saw like, the resiliency that he had and in approaching that and fortunately, like, my family was always okay. So I think that he took, like, a fairly like cautious mindset to it, where he was able to do that, but also support all of us at the same time, too. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:23  

Yeah, that's so fun. So entrepreneur, dad, stay at home, mom, oldest of three girls. I know this lifestyle. Opposite coast, so

Ashley Chang  10:32  

Like I'm talking to myself.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:34  

Yeah, tell me more about, you mentioned your mom's influence on what inspired you to start Sundays and thinking about you're a new mom, but you started this company before you became a mom.

Ashley Chang  10:48  

Two years ago, yeah.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:50  

So tell me more about like your mom's impact and what you experienced of her growing up tat kind of has inspired you to take your career in this direction. 

Ashley Chang  11:02  

Yeah, my mom is super interesting, I think, like, she on the one hand, she was like, by being a stay at home mom, she was, like, super dependable. She was always able to be there for like, everything, and she still does that now, like, if she says she's going to do something, like, guaranteed, she's going to do it, which is amazing and a quality I really want to have as a parent. But then my mom also is, because she came from a computer science background. She's like, always the most technologically advanced in my family. And most people are like, I have to help my parents set up their Wi Fi. My mom's like, I have the Wi Fi and the extenders, and we have cameras that run like, when it snows outside, we'll see that see the snow, or something like that. So super advanced. So my mom, I think, as I was growing up, kind of during technology, like, at a time that technology was changing really quickly, and my mom, I would say, in a lot of ways, like, taught me how to use that technology and take advantage of it. And then, yeah, I think that she was always like building projects too on the side, even though she was mostly watching us, she was like, learning how to code apps. And I've actually built some apps with her. Like, while I was working full time, I was wanting to kind of tree experiment with different areas, and we would build apps together before I started Sundays. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:14  

That's so fun. 

Ashley Chang  12:15  

Yeah. Just like, learned a lot of just how to build things from her, which is probably unique to my situation having a specific mom that I had.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:25  

Yeah. 

Ashley Chang  12:25  

That had a big impact on me.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:26  

And then you've just transitioned to motherhood. So, I mean, you obviously, I'm sure, had lots of like, hypotheses about what it's like, having started a company, having talked to a lot of parents, and so what's it been like? Like, what is your experience been like so far being a working mom?

Ashley Chang  12:43  

I mean, okay, so I'm, I'm very much in the thick of it. This is our first day with our nanny this morning. So I literally was like, I gave the baby to the nanny, and then I was like, Okay, well, I have a call, so I'm not gonna, I have to save the emotions for later. But I think he's doing well. I think something I feel very fortunate about in starting Sundays is that I got to do all of this research with families, and by talking to those families, I just heard that it's hard for everyone, and even the smartest people I know were like, Yeah, this is really hard. It's you're learning something new all the time, and there's so much that goes into it. And so I think that that has been a really beneficial mindset to just know that it's hard and have that be what my expectations are, and know that other people are also having similar experiences. So that's been really helpful. And I think I was literally, like, somewhat in denial that it was, like, actually going to happen. I know I was, I was like, pregnant for nine months, but I think I was just trying to not be as attached. I was like, anything could go wrong, like, we don't know what's going to happen. So then when I actually had the baby, I was kind of like, shocked that it was happening. And I was like, oh my god, now there's an actual baby here. So it's been really fun to get to experience what it's like to actually have a baby. And I took two months fully off, and then have been ramping up part time and figuring out, like, what's the right balance and what feels good for me, and I'm lucky to be able to have that flexibility, but I think that it seems like it's just always going to be kind of a process of figuring out what's working at the moment and what we need to change and what feels good.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:15  

Yeah, well, thank you for talking to us on your first day with your nanny. I remember that day well. And also what I was thinking about when you were talking is I remember something that was really hard for me was that I felt like I had this amazing mom who was, like, full time dedicated to us. So I held myself to that expectation of, like, how great of a mom she was, and then I had this entrepreneurial, like, dad who was, you know, kicking ass in business. And so I, like, also held myself to that expectation of myself. And I remember was probably about a year and a half in when I started therapy and coaching and. And I was talking to my coach, and I was telling her about this, and she said, it sounds like you're trying to be two people.

Ashley Chang  15:07  

Yeah.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:08  

But you are one person. So it's like hard to reconcile, because I think we want to hold ourselves to this high, you know, expectation, because that's what we saw, like we want to be better, like we want to be as good as or better, and that can be really challenging. And honestly, almost every woman I coach, whenever we kind of break it down, what they really want is a clone of themselves, so that they can be two places at once. And, you know, not having to split their time between two things that they really love, like, two of their life's passions. 

Ashley Chang  15:42  

Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense, and I already feel like that. I'm like, oh, it'd be nice if I could watch the baby, but also I want to go talk to Leanna. It's really hard. And I agree with you that there are these different standards. But I also remember, like, my dad when I was young, like he would, we would always eat dinner together as a family, but sometimes he wouldn't get home until like, 8pm so like, we'd have really late dinners. And, like, I think there were a lot of trade offs there and like that we were really dependent on my mom for for being able to, like, care for the household.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  16:11  

Yeah. 

Ashley Chang  16:12  

My husband is also an entrepreneur who started his own company a couple years ago. So okay, we are trying to balance that between the two of us. So I think that requires both of us to, well, hopefully have, like, a plan that makes sense, but like, be cognizant of, like, what are the home things that we have going on, and how are we gonna have enough time for all of the work stuff that we have? But I love what you're saying about just like, setting your expectations for, like, what is it actually possible for one human to accomplish? And I've been trying really hard to prioritize at work, what is, like, most important that actually needs my my, like, brain power on it, versus, like, what can someone else do? And and then try to give them feedback to get it up to what I would want it to be. And then I think it's really interesting, because at work, I'm so on. I'm like, Okay, let me I'm be so focused for these hours. And then I have a four month old, so, like, he can't really do too much. So then I'm like, Okay, let me just try to go be present, like watching the baby roll around, or, like, swat at things. And the really big mindset shift, I also try to logic to myself that, like, that time, it's not necessarily the quantity of time that I'm spending with him. It's like, Can I have more quality time and make sure that there's time for that. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:22  

Yeah, well, I love what you're talking about, delegating and prioritizing and putting your efforts where you need to be. It also leads perfectly into hearing more about your story with Sundays and why you created it. And we're gonna pause here today, everybody. I hope you all will join us next week to hear part two of my conversation with the amazing Ashley Chang and all about Sundays and her transition to motherhood. So thank you, Ashley, so much for joining me today, and I'll look forward to talking with you next week. 

Ashley Chang  17:58  

Thank you. Talk soon. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:59  

All right. Bye everyone.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:06  

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.