What 100 Podcast Episodes Have Taught Me About Pursuing Your Dreams and Building the Life You Want

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. It's my 100th episode. I'm so excited. I am celebrating big time, and it's just been such a journey, and I'm so excited to talk with you, share some of the things I've learned, and I'm just so happy that you're here with me. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Whether this is the first episode you're listening to or you tune in every single week. I appreciate you, and I'm glad that you're here. In the podcasting industry, there are some different statistics, and I don't actually know which ones are real and where they come from and everything, but one of the stats that flies around often is that 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode three, and of that remaining 10%, 90% don't make it to Episode 20, so it's quite an anomaly, if those stats are correct, to make it to 100 and honestly, making it to 100 feels really, really good. I feel really proud of myself and of the team, and I'm just so grateful to all of you who tune in every week and who make me want to keep producing this. I appreciate you. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:46  

I'm pretty proud of myself and my team, because we've been publishing almost weekly for two years now. The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast trailer was published on May 20, 2023, and this episode is being published on May 22, 2025, so as I was thinking about, what do I want to talk about on my 100th episode, I was feeling some pressure, honestly, to make it the best episode yet. And let me tell you, I think it's so common that we do this. Have you ever done this where you're like, there's this thing and you just want to make it so great. And it's ironic, I think, because sometimes putting that pressure on ourselves might work well and make us produce amazing work, but it doesn't work for me very well when it comes to creating. Because what happens for me is that when I put pressure on myself to create something amazing, best ever, I get into procrastination big time. I think of a million other things I need to do, and I put off actually creating something for as long as possible, because I think I have a belief that the longer I wait, the better ideas I might have this, just like Stroke of Genius will come to me, and so I have to wait for it or work on it and hope it comes and, you know, just keep recreating it, because something better might be out there. I don't think this is just me. Let me know if you experienced this. But here's what I decided to talk about for my 100th episode, once I realized what I was doing and I decided to shift my focus from creating the best ever episode to asking myself the question, What have I learned in 100 episodes that would be most helpful to an executive mom who's listening? I find that when I switch my focus back to my mission and my purpose, it's always better. What I create is always better. And also I stop procrastinating because I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have to get this out, like I have to make sure that I share this because I know it's going to help someone. So it just ends that procrastination cycle. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:02  

So let me first tell you just a little bit about my podcasting journey, because I was reflecting on my relationship with podcasts and how I got into podcasting and why. So for many years, I have been an avid podcast listener. Back when I was working in tech startups, I got hooked on how I built this, because I love hearing founders stories and masters of scale, because it offered a lot of helpful tips and guidance to what I was building. You know, we were building our companies. As I got into coaching, I moved more to coaching podcasts. So Brooke Castillo's, The Life Coach Goal podcast, Kara Lowentheil's, Un**** Your Brain, and Rich Litvin's, 1 Insight. And somewhere along the way, I also got hooked on We Can Do Hard Things, and more recently, the Mel Robbins podcast. So those are some of my favorites. There are a bunch more, but these podcasts were so helpful to me, and continue to be. There's just so much knowledge and wisdom given away for free. I think about how amazing it is to be alive in these times, and this is one of the reasons, because we have access to more knowledge than any generation ever has. We don't have to learn everything the hard way. People are out there generously sharing their life lessons with the world and asking nothing in return. And so being so inspired by these podcasts at some point, probably around like 2019 and 2020, I felt inspired and called to become a podcaster myself. I wanted to be able to take everything I was learning on the podcast and in the many courses that I've taken, and personal development books I read, and also just kind of what I've learned from my own experiences, and share them with people who could really benefit from hearing from me. And at the end of 2020 I decided to leave my corporate executive job and spend some time fully focused on my daughter. And I had planned when I left to launch my podcast. Mind you, that was in 2020 but I did not end up launching in 2021, I didn't end up launching it in 2022, it wasn't until June of 2023 that I finally launched it. And I asked myself sometimes, like, Why did I wait so long? And I have coaching sessions from that time, and I have journal entries from that time, and essentially, when I look back, I was afraid. I was really afraid that putting my ideas out there in the world, that I would be judged, that I would say something stupid or embarrassing. I was afraid that I would be bad at it. I had never podcasted before, and what did I know? I didn't know how to do any of this. I was also caught up in perfectionism, and I was really afraid that I would start and then not keep it going. I was afraid that I wouldn't remain consistent, because that's something that I've always struggled with. I've been real good at intensity, and not always so great at consistency, and so then I would have all these listeners just waiting and being so disappointed that I didn't publish every week. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:31  

So I'm glad that I finally launched, and now here we are 100 episodes in, and I want to share five things that I've learned that I think might be helpful for you as well. The first is that ready is a decision, not a feeling. I actually got this idea from Jess Sims, who is one of my favorite Peloton instructors, but that it applies here because it's so important, we cannot wait for that feeling of readiness. I waited two and a half years to launch this thing, and I still didn't feel fully ready, but I realized that another two and a half years wasn't going to do it for me. So if you're waiting to feel ready to start something, whether it's a new business or a new habit or negotiating for a higher salary or a promotion, you have to decide to be ready. You cannot wait around for a feeling because it may never come. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  8:31  

Number two is the idea of embracing a beginner mindset. This one is a tough one for me. It might be for you as well, because as a firstborn who was always in advanced honors courses in school, and then I became a vice president of a company in my 20s, I've kind of always felt like I don't have the luxury of being a beginner. I have to become a master faster than everyone else if I'm going to be able to lead effectively, improve myself, that I deserve to be here, and that's served me in many ways throughout my life, and I'm so grateful for that mindset. But as with everything, there's a positive side and a negative one too. So something that serves us in one place can become a detractor in another place. And so the shadow side of this for me is that I tend to be more hesitant to try new things if I don't know I'll be good at them, and especially when people are watching, when other people can see me trying the new things for the first time. I remember when I started out coaching, and I was in my coach training program, and I was so afraid to actually coach anyone, and I asked my mentor coach if I could just somehow become really good at coaching before I ever actually coached other humans, if I could just like, study enough or like, what could I do to get really good at it so that I didn't have to practice and learn and look stupid in front of other people? And unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. She informed me that I had to coach other humans in order to become good at coaching other humans, which, I mean, when you hear it like that, it's like, yeah, okay, of course. But I think it's just so important that we give ourselves permission to be a beginner sometimes, that we become okay, saying I'm new at this, and I'm trying my best, and I have a lot to learn, but I realize I can only learn by doing. There's no way I can become good at podcasting without actually podcasting. Can't, like, go into a green room and, like, just practice for years and years on end. Like, what's the point of that? And so it's like, of course, I'm going to take classes and I'm going to read all the books and research and prepare as best I can, but at some point I'm going to have to go out there and start doing it, and I'm gonna have to be learning along the way and become comfortable with that feeling of discomfort and just knowing that like it's supposed to be there and it's not a problem, and it's not going to kill me. And also, I think it's so important to learn to have our own backs, to manage our emotions and to support ourselves whenever we inevitably mess up. Because, of course, as a beginner, we're going to not do it perfectly. We're going to mess up and make mistakes. And I just think that if we stay so afraid of that possibility that we don't do it, that's just a huge missed opportunity. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:46  

Number three is to know your why. I think of this in so many different aspects. I think it's so important to get clear on your personal mission and vision, your purpose, your goals and to stay connected to them, to remind yourself of them daily or multiple times a day, if your goal is to help someone, ask yourself every day, what does that person need right now, just like I did for this episode. I think whenever I bring myself back to service, and I bring myself back to connection to that bigger purpose, it makes everything so much more clear, and it makes it easier to take action. If your goal is to build something, ask yourself every day, what's one thing I can do today, big or small, to build it? I think when our ego gets activated, our ego will say, Don't put yourself out there on display for everyone to judge. Don't do the scary thing, or you might look stupid. We have to bring our focus back to our bigger purpose and our goals and why we're doing this. My therapist always says the ego just wants to stay employed, and it's always going to want you to focus on it, but you have to constantly every day. It's a practice that we have to do all the time because of our human nature, to constantly shift our focus to our bigger purpose and mission and goals if we want to achieve them. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:17  

Number four is to get support where you need it. I firmly believe that the ability to ask for help is a superpower and a crucial success strategy. This is coming from someone who likes to be able to do it all, and who used to have a very hard time asking for help, and honestly, sometimes I still do, but I know myself, and I know that having some help to make sure this podcast gets out every week is necessary. As moms, we carry heavy loads, and we can't do it all by ourselves, and so I think it's just so important to recognize where we need help and to not be afraid asking for it. So I have to give a huge shout out to my amazing team, Laura, my producer, and my sister ,and Mora, my editor. I'm just so incredibly grateful to both of you for helping me to make this podcast happen every week. Sometimes at the last minute, I am pretty clear about what I'm good at and what I'm not. And I found some really amazing people to bring their unique strengths, the things that they are so so good at where I need them most, so that all of you amazing listeners have an episode to listen to almost every week. So thank you, Mora and Laura. I appreciate you both.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:41  

Number five is that perfectionism is the killer of dreams. And I've touched on this a little bit, but I want to talk a little bit more about it, because I think perfectionism may serve you in some ways, but it's so important to notice where it doesn't. This podcast has honestly been a weekly lesson in perfectionism recovery. Because every week I wish I could re record. I want more rounds of editing. If I had perfection as my bar, we would not be at 100 episodes. I would probably be at like five in two years, because I would just want to keep iterating. I would just want to keep making it better and better and better. And it would have taken me so long to believe that an episode was worthy of being published. Every time I listen to an episode, I think of a bunch of things I could have said differently or better, and a bunch more things that I wish I would have said. But if I'm gonna get content out to you, if I'm gonna get episodes out to you every week, as well as running a business and being a mom and a wife and training for a triathlon and all the other things I want to do, I just can't spend endless hours on one episode. I can't do that over and over and over and so if you're working to get over perfectionism, just launch a podcast. It's a great practice or anything, where you have people expecting to hear from you on a scheduled, regular basis, and you'll get real good at letting go of perfectionism so that you can make sure you have something for everyone to listen to. And of course, you want it to be high quality. A lot of times our brains will offer us that is either going to be perfection or it's going to be terrible. But there's, like, a lot in between. And I feel so good about the episodes that we publish every week, but I know that they're not perfect. I know that there's probably lots of reworking that could be done to make them so so much better. And also, I know that that time is a finite resource, and that I don't want to spend 40 hours an episode trying to get you the perfect episode. And also, perfectionism kept me from launching this podcast for two and a half years, and what if I hadn't overcome it? What if I hadn't gotten coaching and coached myself, and what if I had stayed stuck in it? I would not be celebrating 100 episodes with you today. I wouldn't have all this free content out there for you to benefit from. And also, personally, I know I would be feeling miserable about myself, because I would know deep in my heart that I had something that I felt really called to do, and I was ignoring that call because I was afraid. Of course, I would keep telling myself that it's because I don't have time and it's too hard, and I don't know how, and you know, whatever other excuses my brain offered me to let me feel like I was off the hook, but at the end of the day, I would not be fulfilling my purpose. I would not be living the life I want to live. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:50  

I have believed for a long time, and this is how I designed my coaching programs, that we have to decide what we want and go get it. That's how I've built the life of my dreams. I remember Oprah saying that most people don't know what they want, and so they'll never have it. Often, I think we're pretty clear on what we don't want. We know what we don't want, and that's a start, but we have to work to get really, really clear on what it is that we want so that we can create it. We have to have that vision of what we want for our lives, for ourselves, for our careers, for our families, in order to make it happen. I recently heard it said another way, by the Avett Brothers. They said, decide who you'll be and go be it. I decided I wanted to be a podcaster, and now I am and that feels so good, and that's available to you as well. Whatever it is that you want to be, you can do the same. You just need to get clear, decide what you want to do, who you want to be, and then get to work creating it. That's the only way you're going to create the life of your dreams. Don't expect it to just happen to you. Get so crystal clear on your vision and take steps every day in that direction. Some days will be a tiny step, like when you notice that you're expecting perfection of yourself in even a small task, that you shift your thinking to expecting progress, and some will be huge steps, like the day you launch the thing. Every day is an opportunity to move in the direction of your dreams, if you choose to. So decide what you want and decide who you want to be, and then every day do it. Don't wait another second to start living the life of your dreams. Thank you so much for being a part of my dream. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  19:46  

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.