Author and founder Neha Ruch joins Invested to share her unique career story, which challenges the conventional definitions of stay-at-home motherhood, ambition, and success. She reframes career pauses as intentional, strategic chapters rather than setbacks. Drawing from her own experience of stepping away from a fast-paced career, Neha talks about how redefining priorities can open the door to more fulfilling career chapters across the different seasons of life.
Neha Ruch built a successful career in digital strategy before making an intentional decision to step back, transition to stay-at-home motherhood, and rethink what ambition could look like beyond a linear career path. That choice ultimately led her to found The Power Pause (formerly known as Mother Untitled) and pen a 2025 book of the same name. Her Power Pause framework reframes career pauses, downshifts, and transitions as purposeful, growth-oriented chapters.
In this episode of Invested, Neha shares her personal journey and insights from years of amplifying the experiences of ambitious women navigating work, caregiving, and identity. She discusses the realities of pausing or downshifting a career, and how making space for different priorities at different moments can lead to greater clarity, confidence, and long-term fulfillment.
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Time stamps:
1:07 - Meet Neha Ruch
2:08 - Neha's early career & background
6:50 - The decision to downshift
8:34 - Navigating other people's feedback & building confidence
15:41 - Financial planning & the "brass tacks" of a career pause
25:58 - The concept of a "Power Pause" — pause is not a period
27:06 - Setting goals during a pause
36:20 - Parenthood as leadership training
37:46 - Where to find Neha
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Links:
Find Angela Pittman Taylor on LinkedIn
[00:00:00] Neha Ruch: And at that time, it was still 2016. It was the height of the Lean In movement, the height of the girlboss era, and I was like, "Why am I still hearing about, like, am I bored?" And I realized there was just this complete misrepresentation. It wasn't even a misrepresentation. It was a complete abandonment of anyone, any ambitious woman choosing to take their foot off the gas.
[00:00:29] Angela Pittman Taylor: Welcome to Invested. We're hosting a miniseries on how to build and sustain fulfilling, engaging careers throughout the different seasons of life with bold and authentic choices. We're talking to several women about their stories of doing this, and we hope listeners will find wisdom and inspiration.
My co-host for this miniseries is Sarah Gaul, a managing director at our global investment banking business. Sarah, welcome. How you doing?
[00:00:52] Sarah Gaul: I am good. I have finally thawed out from my commute into the office. It is, I think, officially negative 1,000 degrees in Chicago. So I am really, really looking forward to this conversation, and we are so lucky to have our guest here today.
[00:01:09] Angela Pittman Taylor: Absolutely. So why don't you go ahead and introduce her?
[00:01:12] Sarah Gaul: I would love to. Our guest today is Neha Ruch, who founded a business and wrote a bestselling book on the concept of taking a career pause, a power pause, as it were. Neha herself took a power pause from a fast-paced career to spend more time with her family.
And in the book, she explores how a power pause of this kind can be intentional, strategic, and extremely fulfilling in so many ways. Her story and, and really all of her work is such an incredible example of pursuing a dynamic career. So we are so thrilled to have her today. Welcome, Neha.
[00:01:55] Neha Ruch: Oh, that's so kind, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have this conversation for multiple reasons.
One of which is it got me out of sledding on this snow day that is happening in New York. My husband is out with three children right now, and I'm nice and warm and cozy with you two, so thank you.
[00:02:13] Sarah Gaul: Perfect. Perfect. Well, that sounds great. So there is so much to unpack, Neha, and so let's start at the very beginning, right?
That's, that's probably a good place to go. Rewind. You established a big, fast-paced career pretty early on. So just set the scene for us. Tell us about sort of your early career, the evolution, and kinda set the stage for us.
[00:02:44] Neha Ruch: I'm so glad you started with my early career because, you know, there's a number of 20-somethings who will show up sometimes at book talks and events and say, "Would you do anything differently?"
I always say, "Absolutely not." I loved my career. I really did, and I still love it, but I loved that stage of it because it was my main priority, you know? And I, and I think I had that capacity, and I gave it everything. I was lucky enough. I, I'd always thought I was gonna be a journalist, but I ended up doing a sharp pivot into social media strategy in 2006.
So imagine, like, Twitter was nascent. Instagram wasn't there yet. So I got very lucky being 22 at an agency that was specializing in social media, and they said, "Well, you're 22. You can, like, take this over." And so it allowed me to climb pretty quickly, and so ultimately was moved into a larger agency as the second hire of the new digital strategy wing.
And, and we built that practice to 100 people. I ran all of the women's-focused accounts, so both in pharma and in retail. And it was really centered on how do we understand millennial women, ironically, and how they use social media to connect and to learn, and how can we as brands do a better job using it?
And it was such fun. It really was. And then I think it was around 27... I was around 27, so I'd probably put in, like, five years at that point when I thought, like, "Mm, something's not 100%..." Like, I'm too young to be in the rooms I'm in, and the politics have sort of outpaced my capacity. Like, and I was sort of caught up in it.
And I decided to go to business school, which is sort of a unique choice in your 20s, uh, in advertising. So after that, ended up at a startup in tech running brand, which was my last formal professional title before I had my first child.
[00:04:52] Sarah Gaul: That's super interesting. So, so peppered throughout your book, which, by the way, Angela and I both just devoured.
It was so good. So y- and you just talked about some of the elements that you loved about your career and what you were building and going to Stanford and just, you know, you're, you're checking all the, the boxes, right? That, you know, we're sort of supposed to, if you will. So what... You know, there are things you loved.
There are clearly things you didn't love. So, I mean, sort of tell us about that.
[00:05:27] Neha Ruch: I... You know, it's funny how the things I loved, I was able to bring with me, right? But I do think that we get to bring parts of what we do with us as we evolve, whether you evolve into another role or you evolve into career pause and then motherhood and then, and then and then and
[00:05:43] Sarah Gaul: then.
Mm-hmm.
[00:05:45] Neha Ruch: I think that I You know, if I were to look back on the things that I found challenging both before business school and after, you know, the irony when I left business school, I left for a tech startup. But, you know, the thing that I f- that I'd brought with me was this love of storytelling and, and how to sort of piece together m- millennial women's, like, new experiences and figure out how we were doing things differently, in this case, weddings.
But the thing that followed me was politics. You know, you don't get to escape that. And I think I had thought that I was gonna go from agency with a lot of people to a startup and, like, somehow it was gonna be devoid of this thing, and the reality is it's like same circus, different clowns, right? And I think as you grow up, you learn how to navigate politics.
Politics are everywhere because in the end, politics i- is about advocating for your needs, understanding other people's needs, finding a middle ground, and at some point, experience helps you navigate that, right? And I, I ultimately found that experience in motherhood. And when I had my first son, you know, a few months later when I was considering sort of my next step in returning, I was rocking with him, and I finally felt free of politics because the only needs I had to take care of were my own, my family's, and it all felt so clear, and it felt like I wanted to rest in that for a little bit.
And I did not fully pause. I downshifted to a part-time role first, two days a week, and then when I had my second child, I paused fully. But I also share that story because I did not choose to downshift and then ultimately pause because I thought it was the right choice for motherhood and ch- children. I really did it because I thought I would be better.
There's so much research to say whether you work in the home or out of the home or exist in the between, your chil- like, there are happy and healthy outcomes for all children as long as the parent is happy and healthy, and so that was really important to me.
[00:07:56] Sarah Gaul: That is... It's such a beautiful and, and courageous statement actually that you sort of say, like, you had this moment of clarity, and it wasn't for your kids, it was for you, and I think that's so special.
And so you, you had this moment of clarity when your son was born, and I do wanna talk about sort of that evolution of your pause. B- It sounds like you had so much confidence in yourself, and so w- what did that sort of process look like, the downshift to a part-time role first? I, I imagine even that may have felt scary.
[00:08:39] Neha Ruch: Mm-hmm. You know, it's interesting you say, "I felt kind of..." I 100% felt confident on the inside. I had yet to develop the chops to be able to handle other people's feedback, and that's something I think I certainly was able to build in motherhood because, as you know, you will be challenged to make a series of decisions, whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle feed or co-sleep or cry it out or get a babysitter or a nanny or a daycare or you have your grandma.
Someone is gonna say something about your decision no matter what, and you will exercise the decision, the ability, the muscle to make the right choice for you and your family and tune that out. And, and that, by the way, is, like, a crucial part and perspective that helps you navigate politics later on, right?
Mm-hmm. The ability to make the best right choice and take the right inputs and weed out the other inputs and keep moving forward. When I initially chose to downshift, I had a collaborator when I was at Zola, a media collaborator, who offered me a two-day a week work week. If there's a way to, to find a model for flexibility within your company, that's incredible.
We negotiated me returning at five months, and I went back two days a week. And I think, to your point, there was pr- there was a part of me that was excited to be able to have the, the, the rest of the week fully with my child, and so the black and whiteness of that. I think there was another part of me that was really happy to have some, uh, earning p- power, to be able to also, with my partner, be able to figure out what that felt like and looked like and be able to have some ongoing conversations, uh, about how we were going to adjust or, um, or shift to make, make room for this.
[00:10:31] Angela Pittman Taylor: One of the things that I have noticed with individuals when they take a, uh, fractional, I love that term, role, is you almost are putting more work in to make that work than if you were doing a full-time role. And I think that that's kind of an interesting thing that maybe people don't necessarily talk very much about.
But to be successful at it, you really do have to kind of almost work harder, put in more effort to make it, to make it fit. Was that something that you experienced as you were going through that, or did you find that to be more seamless for you?
[00:11:06] Neha Ruch: I think there are different versions of flexible work, and I think that if you are part-time or, you know, in some law firms, for example, they'll say you're at 60% or you're...
I think it can be really tricky in the services industry, so I did not take a part-time role in an ad agency because I think when you're in client service and it's billable hours, that can get really- A, J, it's just very tricky. I think that in the sort of, in the position I was in, we... This was pre-COVID, right?
It was 2016. So it was in office, and it was two days in office. And I think to your point, I gave it everything during those two days. I was not, like, taking leisurely lunches during these two days, right? Because that role was so important and so valuable and so rare that I wanted them to feel they were getting everything.
It was really, I was invested in making it work. And I think that when you get that position that values your time and affords you the ability to prioritize other things that are important to you, you wanna make it work.
[00:12:21] Sarah Gaul: So it sort of sounds like this downshift was working for you, and you were sort of able to, uh, sort of test out the pause to some extent.
And so then when your daughter was born, that was sort of another downshift. Is that right?
[00:12:45] Neha Ruch: Well, it's so interesting because so many people think like, oh, career breaks happen as soon as you have your first child. It's very commonly when you add a multiple, because the logistics of childcare just become more complicated, right?
I was navigating the downshift to part-time work, and I was at home the remaining re- the rest of the week. I started hearing the initial traces of pushback of like, "Are you gonna, are you bore, are you bored all day with, with your child?" Or, "Do you feel like you're giving up? Do you feel like you miss the office?
Do you feel like you're gonna lose your place? You w- are you wasting business school a little bit?" I mean, literally these were the things that were said from, by the way, very loving peers, family members, out of a place of true confusion. You know, reconciling this is a person who they perceived as being a force of ambition, who was enjoying very s- you know, on the surface, slow days at home, and they could not process that.
Meanwhile, on my days at home, and I loved what you said in terms of, you know, I was testing o- out the pause, 'cause I was. Like, it wasn't just like, do I like consulting work? It was like, am I okay at mo- like, do I, what, what's gonna happen if I were to fully pause, right? And I was meeting incredible women just by nature of, like, being on a playground and in a play space or in a music class, who were, you know, everyone from someone in finance, someone in merchandising, someone in law, someone...
who were all making their own versions of making room for family. None of them match the very outdated stereotype of the bored, shut-in woman that I was hearing. And at that time, it was still 2016, it was the height of the Lean In movement, the height of the Girl Boss era, and I was like, "Why am I still hearing about, like, am I bored?"
And I realized there was just this complete misrepresentation. It wasn't even a misrepresentation. It was a complete abandonment of anyone, any ambitious woman choosing to take their foot off the gas. And so I started, in 2017, the beginnings of my work with a very small blog and a newsletter and an Instagram profile featuring different women, examples of women making room for family life and what they looked like, what their swe- what their dreams were, how they were staying engaged.
And so when you talk about that decision to downshift again, I had another child, and that brought me to my knees because suddenly what felt very, like, clear, like I spent two days in an office and then I was dressed, suddenly my time was just more fractured. When I fully paused, I, you know, it really was because I just needed more time and less stress.
[00:15:47] Sarah Gaul: Uh, let's talk about s- and you, you started to talk about the financial piece, but let's talk about some of those k- sort of brass tacks pieces that women or men who are contemplating a downshift, what do they need to really sort of think about?
[00:16:08] Neha Ruch: Well, you know, I got very lucky in that, you know, when we had both my husband and I come from a tech background, my husband from the entrepreneurial background, so he had a P&L for his company that he literally copied and pasted for our family when we got married.
This is all of the budgets down to Ubers and taxis, dining out, lunches and coffees, babysitter, travel, whatever. And so even before we had a child, we were using that. We were in a practice of, this is what we're bringing into the home based on our values. And this is where I think it's really interesting for you guys and the work that you do Money is so often considered an intimidating conversation, and I'm not gonna pretend it's romantic, but we do it as a, like, values-based conversation at the top of the year.
We first, we do a, like, reflection on the year past, what felt in alignment with our values, where did we maybe go over in budget and spending that, like, doesn't make any sense and doesn't feel good. So that's the budgeting piece that regardless of whether you work out of the home or in the home, I think having both partners be at the table, looking at the income as a joint household income, and making decisions about how that income is allocated is, like, the first crucial step.
I think that I felt more empowered being able to make the choices in my career because I knew that we were doing-- we were still side by side making the decisions. Now, the second part of this is, okay, if one of you decides we're gonna make a shift. And as soon as you start to see that all laid out, you start to make calculations as to, okay, well, how do we need to invest in our whole household, and what do we need to feel like the family that we're feeling, that w- the best possible way we can feel?
I say that because one of the, you know, big critiques of this work will be, well, it's a financial privilege to, to pause. I think it's very important to call out that in this country, one in three women feel forced to pause because of the cost of childcare. Sixty percent cite financial considerations. Now, it isn't to say that it's a privilege to get to work out of the home or to exist in between.
It's to say the privilege is to get to choose. And from there, even once it's a choice, there is a lot... I interviewed a couple in Colorado who for them it was as simple as, like, they wanted one parent to be at home, so they decided that for the next two years they were gonna cut family vacations, and that was, that was it for them.
That, the, the, the math mathed on that side. For another family, it was a much bigger deal. They wanted a parent at home because the stress level in the family was too high with both parents out of the home, and so they decided to move from the Bay Area to Virginia. For them, the cost of living was just too immense, right?
So that's a much bigger shift. So you can see how the first part is deciding that you together Are an interdependent household, and you together are making financial shifts based on your values
[00:19:29] Sarah Gaul: I love when you say the value-based decision making, because that's what it's all about, and it sounds like even pre-kids you had such a, you know, great sort of open dialogue with your husband.
But t- talk about your ego, how you worked through that, and, and was there any impact in you feeling, "I am no longer contributing financially to my household"? W- was there sort of any inner dialogue around that?
[00:20:02] Neha Ruch: Oh, 100%. I mean, I think this... I think the whole first section of the book is really centered... I mean, you know, we call it about, like, redefining ambition, financial dignity, all of that.
But I think, you know, the ego hit, it was less in the home and more in my peer circles. You know, you go from sitting at brunch and people asking you about your work to people not knowing what to ask you because they literally think you don't do anything all day. I suddenly felt like, you know, where I belonged to this cohort who maybe we were threaded together because of a shared ambition, a shared sense of we are modern women.
In some way, my decision to not do paid work at that time had cut me out of that. They just didn't know, because we as a culture have not provided color or context or language around a dynamic life within... outside of the workplace, right? So if you think about when someone asks you, "What do you do?" as, like, your opening-
[00:21:15] Sarah Gaul: Introduction.
Yeah.
[00:21:16] Neha Ruch: Right? If you answer, like, "Oh, I run branding a tech startup," very quickly people are like, "Well, she's in a leadership position. She's creative. She's in a startup. What's happening in the startup world?" Like, there's all these, like, very pithy ways to connect. When I used to say, like, "Oh, I'm a stay-at-home mom right now," immediately for some reason they f- the, like, the caricature that comes to mind, and this was validated in our research, is a 1950s housewife.
And suddenly they think, like, oh, I- we have literally nothing in common. Meanwhile, which is why, you know, so much of the book is prescriptive language, because I had to word vomit my way out of that. I had to feel invisible enough r- in enough rooms to get to a place where I could infuse a little bit more dignity into what I did, right?
And, and for me, that came down to, like, right now- 'Cause this is not forever. Like, I'm not, like, my kids are gonna grow up, and I am gonna grow up, too, but right now I get to be with my kids. We'll see what comes next. Or right now I get to be with my kids, I'm actually working on a project about X, Y, and Z alongside, right?
And so I think the ego was most deeply and widely felt in social contexts. That hit was really extreme, because we have associated ambition and feminism with paid work into, and we associate our friendships in modern circles based on that. So then to feel disconnected from that was complicated, and I think that's why I start the book with so much about the history of feminism, so much about the reality of ambition and, like, the literal definition, because those days were hard.
[00:22:58] Sarah Gaul: This is, I, I'm trying not to interject too much with my mm-hmm's, but, like, if our listeners will be watching on YouTube, my head's gonna fall off, because I am in such deep agreement. And there were so many wonderful things you said, but, but one thing that stuck with me from what you just said and, and from your book is it's the, the right now piece.
That there are chapters to our lives, our careers do not have to be linear, and I think the, the book and your story challenged me so much to... I- it's just all about sort of intentionally evaluating how you spend your time. Right. And I, I was telling that to my family, where obviously the, the book is largely directed at, at mothers, which I so deeply appreciate, but it, it's li- anyone can gain so much from just thinking about how you are intentionally spending your time, and that answer was different 10 years ago.
Right. It's different now, and it's gonna be different in the future. And we are all so multifaceted. And to your point, I feel like that is hard for sort of society to come to grips with sometimes.
[00:24:19] Neha Ruch: If you think about, like, now we can talk about nonlinear lives and portfolio lives and all of this language, not because we were, like, antiquated and suppressed and suffocated before, but because the technology really didn't exist, right?
Like, we're looking at a generation of women who are having children later, right? So think that our, you know, if the average age across the country is 30, then excuse, you know, d- different in socioeconomic brackets and then on the coasts. And so you're coming into parenthood with an average of eight years of career experience, 10, 15, even more so in, in some parts of the country.
Now you're coming in with work and education experience that just affords you a different capacity of options on the other side, right? The gig economy and the freelance fractional part-time marketplace has exploded in, in no small part because of technology. Ju- that just allows a level of communication and connectedness that didn't exist before.
They're spending three times the amount of time with their kids than any generation before. So th- you know, you're seeing more equitable partnerships in the home. And the whole thing sort of paints a, like, oh, we just... It's the natural course of life. We just need to update the dialogue because life has cau- like, life has just caught up, and we were due.
[00:25:46] Sarah Gaul: Yep. Yep, that's such a good point. Yeah. So talk to us more about, you know, w- w- how Mother Untitled was born and now The Power Pause and, and what did that sort of look like in the beginning?
[00:26:03] Neha Ruch: And first of all, the reason I use pause is it's, like, very intentionally, like a pause is not a period. And it goes back to this idea of right now, and I think that we just need to abandon the idea that everything has to be so black and white.
We can take a beat. You can take a downshift for a year, three years. It's just part of a very long game. And the idea of a power pause was really this idea of not only are we saying caregiving has value, and, and when you're at home doing unpaid work, it, it, it can be purposeful, and it can contribute, and, you know, the partner working out of the home depends on it and all of that.
We're also saying, and this is the big difference, that when you shift time and energy away from the paid workforce, you're naturally redirecting it in another place, and oftentimes that's certainly your other priority, in this case, childcare. Could be health care, could be elder care. But when you shift, you can actually make room to expand your network and your interests and your skills in new ways because you're in new environments just by virtue of, like I said, like, being in a playground and play spaces, like, I'm just meeting new women.
I have new connective tissue in my conversations, right? Big part of that middle section of the book is, okay, you've made peace with the ego and the finances. You've set-- You've decided, like, this is just a minute in the grand scheme of things, right? But when you need to get your footing, I think one of the traps is, well, I've shifted To be at home with my kids, and now it's about my kids.
And I think the-- and I fell into that trap very quickly because I, you know, I thought, "Okay, I'm at home, so I guess my new success is found in how well-behaved my kids are." Let me be very clear, having a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter made me feel like a total failure if that was my recipe for success, right?
Like, because I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm raising a sociopath." Yeah. "And, like, my house is disgusting." And so there's no way that can be a measure of success. It's just like a surefire fa- way to feel like a failure. And so I very quickly had to figure out, well, okay, if we've been taught that, like, success was found in promotions and salaries, and now I'm at home, and it can't be my kids because, like, we're realizing that's not, that's no bueno.
Like, what else is available to me? I realized, like, a lot else, actually. Like, there's a lot of other ways I can feel like this time is my own. And goals dignify time, right? They allow-- when you put pen to paper on like, yes, no one is telling me at the end of the day I need to hit this sales metric to be successful, but what metric then is viable?
What are a few attainable, measurable goals professionally, personally, and from a family perspective? I'm gonna be writing a lot about work and family. I'm gonna feel much more calm and less reactive, and I am gonna have a silly, playful home. Then my metrics for that year that I had a three and one-year-old and was-- felt like, "Oh my God, how can I possibly have metrics?"
Can be really small. They can be, I'm gonna have, write three blog posts a week and exercise that writing muscle, right? Or I'm gonna do one interview of a woman with a different work and family life, because that's like the seed I wanna plant, and maybe I do that during a nap, but that's attainable. And then on a, on a personal level, I'm gonna, you know, I might do a meditation practice, and it might be two minutes every morning.
That's what's available to me right now, but, like, that's gonna help build that toward-- that's gonna be that little thing that gets me that much closer to that calmer and less reactive self. And then on the family values, like, okay, I want a silly, playful home. Maybe it's like we play one board game a week, or we have one dance party a week, right?
And, and so you can see that it's not-- they don't have to be big and grand, and certainly they evolve when you have more time available to you, right? Like, I do this now, and I can tell you with a ten and seven-year-old, like, they're out of the house a lot. So those goals have certainly expanded. But w- in having those small measurable pieces that moved me with intention towards a future state made me feel like, "Oh, I'm growing too."
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it let me feel like, "Oh, I'm not so stuck."
[00:30:29] Sarah Gaul: Mm-hmm. And I think
[00:30:30] Neha Ruch: that we've been really handed this idea that a career pause is a life pause, that, like, you're g- And I think this allows you to really feel like, "No, you're actually moving forward
[00:30:40] Sarah Gaul: too." Mm-hmm. That's, that's so powerful. And so in the nap times, in the post-bedtimes, it was really your idea of sort of the power pause was born.
Where did you start thinking, "I should write a book. I should create this platform"? How did this evolve?
[00:30:59] Neha Ruch: I remember I was walking Bodhi around Union Square Park, and the first iteration of it, I was like, "You know, just feel like all these women who are currently on pau-- like, you know, they've downshifted or they're pausing, they're, like, gathering playgrounds.
Like, what if we had a workspace that we could, you know, it's called..." And I talked about this idea as Mother Untitled. Like, this idea of, like, when you don't have a professional title and you don't have... And my dad was like, "I love that idea. I thought you wanted to be at home with your kids." And I was like, "Well, right, I can do both things."
And so then I pared back. So then I decided, "Okay, I'll do this in a blog platform." And I felt like I was looking at what I was building, and I was like, "This is a big idea." Like, rebranding stay-at-home motherhood is a big idea, and, and just doing these three blog posts a week isn't cutting it. I was looking around and thinking, "Wait a second, if she..."
Like, there's a return to work guide, and there's no how do you walk through a career pause or stay-at-home motherhood with, you know, that level of confidence and clarity. It really sparked the, I think, I think I should do this in a b- in a book concept, because there's nothing else out there. And in twenty-twenty one, twenty-twenty two, my kids both aged into school, and as I just talked about, when your kids go to school, you definitely have a little bit more time available to you.
And the second thing that happened was the pandemic, and the world felt much more ready to have conversations about, well, what else is out there, because something's not working. And I ended up writing the book proposal based on the same one-pager I'd written about the book in twenty-nineteen, but if I'd submitted that in twenty-nineteen, I would have never, ever, ever, ever gotten the book deal or the reception that I think this book got.
Well, I'm very glad I planted those seeds and kept it going even when it seemed really small and no one understood.
[00:32:59] Sarah Gaul: I just, I have chills. It's truly such a special story, and as you look, as you reflect on everything now, and you said at the top of the conversation, you know, it's easy to sort of connect the dots in hindsight, and you just talked about how timing is everything.
But h- how are you feeling now? I mean, your book came out a year ago. Obviously, it was sort of this massive success, and you've, you've helped so many people. D- how do you reflect on that now? It's just so cool.
[00:33:27] Neha Ruch: It is so cool. It's so cool. I'm so grateful that it worked. Like, I, I, like, I just sometimes I'm like, "It really worked.
It worked." I guess the, the reason I sort of dwell on then how long it took was it was a 10-year overnight ex- success, right? It took building that muscle of trusting what you know is the next right thing for you and your family. Um, and, and I, and so I, I think I'm still sitting in the, like, I'm so glad.
I'm so glad it worked. It's interesting, for the first six months when the book was out, I just was like, "I'm gonna see this out into the world," like, uh, taking every single thing. This year, I just wanna still have more time with my kids. Like, I love the speaking because that part gives, gets the message out to as many people and companies and communities as possible.
The other piece I'm really loving is we launched a membership, which is really this incredibly validating space where you watch these women who, you know, they worked at JPMorgan for 15 years, and now they're taking a beat, and they are thinking about social impact, or someone who worked in the Obama administration and, uh, you know, or someone who's a nurse in Arkansas who ta- who's taking some time off 'cause her daughter has diabetes, and she's fa- trying to figure out how she can stay connected, you know, through the work now she's doing, the advocacy for her daughter.
And it's this vibrant community of women trying to use this just as their place to very easily network well and learn alongside family life. And so y- I think it's getting me back to why I started it, which is, it felt really refreshing. Feels less like a dog and pony show and more like I'm back in it, you know?
[00:35:19] Angela Pittman Taylor: I think a lot of this really resonated with me as well. Right off the top when you talked about, you know, making this choice for yourself. You know, I think that there is a, a little bit of permission that women have to give themselves to To do that. You know, there's kind of this expectation that you would say it's for the kids, you know?
And, and the kids benefit, but I, I just love the way that you talked about that, about how you made this change for, or took this pause for yourself, and that, you know, a pause is not a period, that this is something that it's a shift into a next chapter. And, and particularly that a lot of your... That your advice is really geared toward the, the way motherhood is viewed, and stay-at-home motherhood is viewed.
My husband is, stays at home primarily with the, with the kids, and I will tell you, he is treated like a rare animal. A rare jewel, right? That it's so... And everybody, you know, wants to, "Oh, so admirable, so admirable," and, and the work that you had to do and the work that moms have to do to be seen. I just really appreciated all of that.
So thank you very much for, for sharing that with us.
[00:36:26] Neha Ruch: Well, and I- Thank you ... and I love having this conversation in this format, because, you know, the, the parts we didn't get to is that this... That parenthood, yes, is an exploratory period, but an immense leadership training ground. Like, we talked about sort of that enhanced perspective, patience, organization, right?
Like, all of those things. But in combination with, I wasn't unique in... Yes, I know my story, sort of the linear path is, of like, oh, she was, worked in social, and now she's rebranded stay-at-home mother. Like, that might make sense, but if you were to talk to women at home across this country, they have their hands in volunteering, upskilling, part-time work, advising friends, small businesses.
I think this idea of stay-at-home motherhood is so, uh, the, the labeling of it is so antiquated, because it's not so black and white. There are so many ambitious women who are choosing to shift because they need or want to, and they're meeting new women, they are exploring new ideas in so many different formats, and, and they're just by nature of parenthood just being as demanding as it is, as evidenced by my son who keeps sliding open this door.
Excuse me. You know, it is, it is... Should be viewed just like a sabbatical would be, and included as a really enriching chapter as part of a very long career story.
[00:37:51] Sarah Gaul: So well said. Unfortunately, we have to wrap this discussion, mostly for Bodhi. We, we got... He-
[00:37:59] Neha Ruch: He really needs to play his basketball game outside.
Yeah. Like, he really needs to, clearly.
[00:38:04] Sarah Gaul: Totally. No, thank you so much for your time. This was such an incredibly powerful conversation. All of our listeners should read your book, should visit the PowerPause platform, as well as then visit you on social media, Instagram, because it's just such, it's such an incredibly inspiring platform, and also very data-driven, which is, I so deeply appreciate.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This was so special. Thank you.
[00:38:33] Neha Ruch: I really appreciate it- Yes, thank you ... both of you, Barb and Angela.
[00:38:36] Angela Pittman Taylor: And also, as we're closing, if you wouldn't mind just giving those handles of the various platforms that you're on so that our listeners can find you easily.
[00:38:44] Neha Ruch: You can find me on neharouche on Instagram, thepowerpods.com for all of the tremendous free resources, and I really encourage women, women to make use of those.
Neha Ruch on LinkedIn and on Substack.
[00:39:01] Angela Pittman Taylor: Fantastic. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:39:04] Neha Ruch: Thank you.
[00:39:07] Angela Pittman Taylor: The information offered is for informational purposes only, and should not be regarded as information or advice sufficient on which to make a financial decision. Baird is not a legal or tax services provider, and you are strongly encouraged to seek the advice of the appropriate professional advisors before taking any action.
All investments have some level of risk, and this should not be considered a recommendation of any products or services discussed today. The opinions are those of the guest and not necessarily those of Baird. Robert W. Baird & Company Incorporated, member SIPC.