Leadership, Motherhood, Resilience & Redefining Success: Key Takeaways from the 2025 Summer Series

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  

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to be here with you, just you and me. It's been a minute since I've just been on the mic talking to you after this amazing summer series that we've just had, and what I want to do today, this first week of September, in back to school season, in the end of summer, and now we're getting back in the swing of things for the school year, I wanted to take a minute before we moved on, to wrap up the summer series and really kind of look back at some of the greatest takeaways and learnings that I had from talking to these amazing and inspiring women. Because I don't know about you, but these six women completely inspired me. I absolutely loved my conversation with each of them. I feel so honored that they all came on the show and we did the two part series for each of them, and my goal was to first tell their story and understand them a little bit more as a human before we learn more about the work that they're doing in the world or the message that they have to share. So I hope that you enjoyed that series. I just loved creating it, and so as a reminder, just to kind of recap, because maybe you missed one of them, or maybe summer was so crazy. I don't know about you, but this summer felt really, really fast, so maybe you didn't have a chance to catch all of them. So I'll just tell you real quick about each of them. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:13  

We had six women come for two part series, and the first one that kicked off the series was the amazing Lesley Robinson, and she talked about really redefining success and career on your own terms. She talked a bit about her dissertation journey and how she kind of changed courses multiple times to make sure that it was in alignment with her and her goals. And I think the big theme of Lesley's episodes was letting go of external definitions of success and intentionally choosing your path. One of my biggest takeaways was really that you don't have to climb the ladder in a linear way. Sometimes it's much more about creating alignment and meaning in work and life. And I think that Lesley set the stage so well for that, because we heard that from multiple women throughout the summertime. And so I think that this conversation with Lesley really set the tone for the summer series by questioning old definitions of success and really starting to imagine new possibilities. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:31  

Our second guest was Dina Pokedoff. And Dina talked a lot about her career as a marketing executive and how she has balanced that with her kids. Her kids are a little bit older than some of the other women that we talked to this summer, and so it was interesting to hear her take because she has a different perspective. For me, one of the biggest takeaways was hearing her career journey and how, instead of going up up up up up that career ladder, that linear, straight up the ladder, kind of orientation and career path, Dina took some unexpected detours from that ladder and made some different changes, and also encountered some unexpected career changes with layoffs. And so I think that she really gave us a powerful reminder that success is not always about getting to the next rung, but really about taking the next step toward alignment. She talked a lot about redefining ambition and choosing sustainability over burnout, and how we can think about the long game, the marathon of life, instead of going at a sprint pace and only allowing ourselves enough energy to get through a sprint. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:07  

And then next up, we had Sarah Brelowski, my personal trainer. She came on and talked about redefining strong, what strong means to her, and we really dove into her career path and how she made a really big pivot out of the consulting world into health and wellness and personal training. And I loved hearing her story. And then she also talked about, obviously, she's an expert on strength. So she talked about strength training, and really strength not just as physical power, but thinking about it as self care and balance and listening to your body and what it can give to you. And so I think that one of the key takeaways from my conversation with Sarah was that being strong is not about doing it all. It's really about honoring your body and living fully, and just like Lesley and Dina talked about really living in alignment with what you want, and kind of not worrying so much about what everybody else wants for you or expects of you or thinks you should be doing. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:27  

And then we had Erica Willie. This conversation was a lot about embracing motherhood as a superpower. We heard about Erica's career journey, which was so interesting. She's done so many things, from NFL cheerleader to being a technologist to working in enterprise sales, and now she started her own nonprofit that's aligned with her personal mission and the legacy that she wants to leave. And so I love this conversation, because she really talked about how at first, whenever she was working in enterprise sales and she was pregnant, she felt like, oh my gosh, this is going to be such a hindrance to my career progression, because she was she fainted at work, and she had some challenges physically. And then over time and three kids, she has learned to embrace motherhood as her superpower, rather than as a hindrance to her career. So I love how she talked about being intentional, about how she shows up at work, and really like choosing where she puts her energy and how she spends her time, and we talked a lot about the legacy that she wants to leave. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:50  

And then we had Ashley Chang who is the co founder of Sundays, which is an executive assistant service for working parents, and Ashley and I discovered that we have so many things in common that we have such a similar upbringing with having a stay at home mom and an entrepreneur dad, and from seeing that we both internalized that high standard of being an entrepreneur, as well as that high standard of being a mother. But one of the things that we've both had to realize, and Ashley is a new mom, so she's realizing right now, is that we can't compare ourselves to those two people who were so instrumental in our lives, because we are only one person, and they each were specialists. They each had their own specific job, and we are kind of carrying the expectation that we live up to that, that we are as great of an entrepreneur as our dad and as great of a mother as our mom, but it's challenging whenever we're one person trying to do both jobs. I loved how Ashley talked a lot about the fact that she really saw this gap, this challenge that so many working parents were having, and she responded with creativity rather than resignation. She decided to create something to help. Rather than saying, this is just the way it is. And, you know, we all just have to kind of deal with it, she went and created something to really make it better. So I love that. I love it whenever people do that. And I think that her story serves as a great reminder that leadership often starts with noticing everyday struggles and making a decision to make life better for yourself and for others. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:53  

And then finally, we had Kiran Reddy, who is. Is an attorney. She talked a lot about being grounded in purpose and resilience, and she shared her story about the past four years, which included a lot of change for her. She transitioned to motherhood, became a mom. She turned 40, she went through a separation and divorce from a relationship of 18 years. She had two layoffs, and so I loved hearing her story about how she overcame all of this adversity and stays connected to what's important to her. I think that she shared some really practical tips for anyone who's going through a challenging time, and I think also her story is so inspiring about finding purpose through adversity and holding value steady while navigating change. She has some things that are really important to her, like volunteering in her community, and she talks about how she finds the time and how she prioritizes and how much that gives back to her. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:17  

So I just loved all of these conversations so much. Actually had someone reach out at the end of the summer and ask, Can you give me a couple of episodes? I'm a little bit behind. What should I listen to next? And I was like, Oh my gosh, I have six women in 12 episodes, and I can't choose one. I want you to listen to all of them, because they're all so amazing, and these conversations become like my babies. I don't have a favorite. I love them all so much. So I just want to give a huge shout out to these six women who are so amazing. Thank you for coming on and sharing your stories and being so honest and open with us and being an inspiration to all of us.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:02  

I want to share my six biggest takeaways from these conversations, because I think so many of them like we had some really common themes. So I kind of thought that that would be fun to share some of these themes and tie throughs from the overall series. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:20  

One of the clearest threads is the idea of redefining success on your own terms. Lesley really reminded us that success isn't always about climbing higher on the ladder. It can mean pivoting and stepping back or slowing down if that move brings you closer to what matters. And Dina really echoed this with her very bold statement that sometimes moving down the ladder is actually the smartest move you can make, because it might get you closer to your overall alignment of where you want to be in your life and career. And both Kiran and Sarah showed us that adversity and change don't take us off the path of success. They don't have to. They often really deepen our sense of purpose and make us more grounded and committed to doing what we want to do in this lifetime, in this one and only precious life that we have.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:21  

Number two. The second theme that surfaced again and again was really motherhood as a superpower, not a limitation. And of course, that was the theme of Erica's episode. She captured this really beautifully when she shared how motherhood made her more intentional about how she shows up at work and how she chooses to spend her time, and I think so many of us can relate to that, because motherhood makes us feel like we have fewer hours in the day, and we have to do the most with the hours that we have, and it helps us to cut out what's not important. And I think Kiran really talked about that. She talked about that in the first year of motherhood, she had to put down a lot of things. She chose to put down a lot of things, and lived kind of in more of survival mode. And just like here is the bare minimum that we need to be able to get by. And at the end of that year, she talked about how she realized she didn't need all of those things anymore. She didn't need to put those back on her plate, that it made more sense to kind of keep them off of her plate. Their stories really remind us that motherhood can be a source of clarity and strength and legacy building, rather than feeling like it's something that holds us back. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:48  

I think this series also highlighted some different dimensions of strength and resilience. Sarah really talked about redefining what it means to be strong, that true strength isn't really about pushing, pushing, pushing, and it isn't necessarily about some of the definitions that we've been given in our lifetimes, that true strength is really about listening to our bodies, about caring for ourselves and honoring our limits. And Kiran's story of navigating change and adversity really underscored the fact that resilience comes from adaptability, that strength is as much about pausing, pivoting and realigning as it is about endurance. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:40  

And then fourth, we heard some really powerful lessons on leadership. I loved Lesley's definition of entrepreneurial leadership, and I had never heard that definition, or heard how she described it, but I loved her take on that, and I love all of the amazing things that she has created using that leadership style. Ashley inspired us with her story of really seeing a need for working parents and choosing to create a solution. I think that that is real leadership whenever you see a problem and decide that you're going to do something about it, whether that's on as big of a scale as creating a company like Ashley did, or just in our day to day lives at work or at home or in our communities, of seeing a challenge and trying to create something better. And then Lesley Dina and Kiran all showed us that leadership often looks like aligning our choices with our values and leading with resilience and purpose. Leadership isn't just about managing teams or projects. It's really about seeing what's missing, creating what's needed, and living out our values in action. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:08  

Fifth, we heard about the importance of reflection and intentionality. Every single guest, all six of the women, in some way, spoke about the power of pausing, whether that's reflecting on our values or questioning old definitions of success or simply checking in with ourselves. That space to pause and reflect is really what allows us to make aligned and intentional choices, instead of running on autopilot in a direction that we may not really want to be going in, but taking the time to check in with ourselves and say, Am I on the path I want to be on? What is my vision and am I going in the direction that I want to be going?, is so important for us to live the kind of lives that we want to live. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:04  

And then finally, I was really reminded that challenges can spark innovation. Ashley's creation of Sundays, Lesley, Dina and Sarah's career pivots. Erica's discovery of motherhood as her superpower, and her decision to leave corporate and start her own nonprofit, and Kiran's journey with adversity all point to the same truth, which is that friction often causes opportunity. When we face obstacles, we're really invited to think differently, to create new solutions, to innovate our processes, and it really challenges us to move forward in ways that we just might not have imagined otherwise. So if you're in a tough season right now, I really hope that these stories have inspired you to consider what amazing things might come out of this, what opportunities this might be creating for you after this season.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  19:12  

 So taken together, I think that these conversations really remind us that success has no single definition. It can mean pivoting. It can mean slowing down, innovating or grounding in purpose. Motherhood can really be a source of power, rather than a hindrance and strength. Strength comes not just from grit and pushing through, but also from adaptability. Leadership is about seeing needs and aligning with our own values and being in touch with them, and reflection, these intentional pauses, really helps us to navigate all of it with more clarity. I think that's the legacy of the summer series, really an invitation to live and lead with intention and to redefine old narratives, and ultimately, to create lives that reflect what matter most, which I think all of these women have done and are doing and will continue to do. And so I hope that you have taken that away as well. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:20  

And I would invite you to consider, to take some time to reflect on your own definitions of success, strength and leadership, and notice if the way that you're living is aligned with those definitions, or if you want to make some changes. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:39  

So that's a wrap on our summer series. Thank you for tuning in to these episodes and hearing these conversations. Coming up next in the fall here, we'll have lots of great content for you. So I'm just so glad that you're here, and I appreciate you. So thank you all so much. Thank you again to these six amazing, inspiring women, and I will see you all next week. Bye. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  21:08  

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.