Comparison is the Thief of Joy: Jennifer Pate on Choosing Yourself

Comparison is the Thief of Joy: Jennifer Pate on Choosing Yourself

What if the only thing standing between you and your next chapter is the belief that the ship has already sailed? In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea sits down with Jennifer Pate, a producer, author and former casting director whose career has been one reinvention after another. Jennifer danced professionally in her late teens, moved into casting and built her own company, stepped back to raise her kids, then co-created the Webby-winning web series Jen and Barb Mom Life and co-wrote the book The Mothers of Reinvention. Today she produces film and television, including The Runarounds on Amazon Prime and the feature Driver's Ed. Jennifer and Andrea trace a path that refuses to run in a straight line. Every chapter handed her something the next one needed, and she is candid that not all of it worked. The through line is reinvention, the willingness to shed an old version of yourself when it stops serving you and to ask "why not me" instead of "why me." The conversation lands well beyond career advice. Jennifer talks about the invisible labor women carry at home, the Gloria Steinem quote that reframed how she sees stay-at-home mothers and why comparison is the thief of joy. She and Andrea make the case that the work done inside the home is real, valuable work, that women in their 50s and beyond get to define this chapter on their own terms and that a circle of women you can be honest with is closer to oxygen than luxury. This episode is for the woman who thinks the ship has sailed, who stepped back from her career and wonders if there is a way back in and who is ready to stop measuring her chapter against everyone else's. In this episode, you'll hear: * Why "why not me" beats "why me" in every reinvention * How Jennifer turned a mommy and me class friendship into a Webby-winning series * What The Mothers of Reinvention teaches about shedding old versions of yourself * Why staying home with her kids was never a step backward * How the skills from one career quietly fund the next * Why comparison is the thief of joy and what to do instead * What Gloria Steinem told Jennifer about stay-at-home mothers * Why the invisible labor of the home is real and valuable work * How women in their 50s and beyond can define this chapter themselves * Why you belong at any table you are invited to * What a circle of trusted women does for your longevity Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:46) Do I really belong on this show (2:39) Pausing a casting career for motherhood (6:43) Building Jen and Barb Mom Life (7:51) Writing The Mothers of Reinvention (9:05) The invisible labor women carry home (12:14) Becoming a film and television producer (18:10) Comparison is the thief of joy (22:54) Women deserve the choice to decide (25:06) Why women need circles of girlfriends (28:28) Closing gratitude and call to action Episode Resources Jen and Barb Mom Life: http://jenandbarb.com [http://jenandbarb.com] Jennifer Pate, USC School of Dramatic Arts Board of Councilors: https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/about/board-of-councilors/jennifer-pate/ [https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/about/board-of-councilors/jennifer-pate/]The Mothers of Reinvention (book) https://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Reinvention-Reclaim-Identity-Potential/dp/1593156839 [https://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Reinvention-Reclaim-Identity-Potential/dp/1593156839] Produced by ⁠UNFLTR [https://unfltr.io/]

Message, Medium & Messenger: Mary Corcoran on Reaching People

What does it take to walk away from a successful corporate career and build a multi-million dollar movement in seven months with no map? In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea sits down with Mary Corcoran, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Save America Movement, the cross-partisan organization she launched with Steve Schmidt to slow the rise of authoritarianism and renew American democracy. Mary calls herself a recovering corporate executive. She spent a career in communications and marketing, the kind most people spend decades building, and then left it behind after watching a gap open up that no one was filling. What she traded was comfort. What she gained was a first-time founder's education, learned in real time and at full speed. Mary and Andrea unpack the strategy underneath the movement, and it maps directly onto building any business. Mary breaks an overwhelming mission into its parts and reaches her audience through three things: the message, the medium and the messenger. She makes the case that trusted local voices outperform polished national campaigns every time, that a nurse, a member of the clergy or a veteran in someone's own community will move people in a way that linear television never will. For any founder deciding where to put limited dollars, the lesson is to build around who your audience already believes, not around your budget. This conversation goes well beyond politics. Mary talks about leaning on a career and a life's worth of network to build something high stakes and high risk, why she had to shed the fear of being publicly wrong, and how she keeps an organization agile without letting it tip into chaos. She is candid about the all-encompassing reality of founder life and the discipline it takes for a woman to carve out time for her family inside it. Her closing ask is one any time-poor founder can act on: if you have five minutes and a phone, you have enough. This episode is for the woman who is building something no one has built before,who is tired of sitting on the sidelines and is ready to act on a big mission without a roadmap. In this episode, you'll hear: * Why leaving a successful career costs comfort, and why that discomfort is also the benefit * How Mary built a multi-million dollar nonprofit in seven months by leaning on her network * What the message, the medium, and the messenger reveal about reaching any audience * Why trusted local messengers outperform polished national campaigns every time * How breaking an impossible goal into parts keeps a team from burning out * Why being willing to be wrong and pivot is the hallmark of a successful founder * How Operation Liberty in Los Angeles became a pilot before scaling to other cities * What it means to stay agile without becoming completely chaotic * The three actions any founder can take in under thirty minutes * Why every dollar counts, whether you give five or five hundred Episode Resources * Save America Movement [https://thesaveamericamovement.org/] * Save America Movement on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@SaveAmericaMvmt] * Save America Movement on Substack [https://saveamericamovement.substack.com/] * Connect with Mary Corcoran on LinkedIn  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryecorcoran/] Timestamps (0:00) Welcome and intro to Mary Corcoran  (1:17) Leaving a corporate career behind  (3:05) Defining the Save America Movement mission  (6:17) Setting big goals without burning out  (7:52) Message, medium, and messenger explained  (11:29) Engaging communities beyond the screen  (12:44) Leaning on your network as a founder  (16:58) Inside the Operation Liberty program  (21:24) Being willing to be publicly wrong  (27:45) Three actions in under thirty minutes  (31:03) The women running for office now

Cultivate Real Power Instead of Chasing Outrage

What happens to the women who keep showing up to fight for democracy when the rooms making the laws have stopped pretending to play by the rules? In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea sits down with Aftyn Behn, Tennessee State Representative for District 51, organizer, and former candidate for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District. Aftyn came up through grassroots advocacy, starting as one of the first organizers at the Tennessee Justice Center, then leading rural progressive work at National Indivisible and Rural Organizing. She ran for the State House in 2023 after the Tennessee Three protests and has since become one of the country's most distinctive voices on what it actually takes to build women's political power inside a state the Wilson Center has described as an electoral autocracy. Aftyn and Andrea trace the through-line of her work: the most punishing policies for women are being written in the states with the fewest women at the table, and the legislation drafted in Tennessee is being engineered to climb the Sixth Circuit and land at the Supreme Court. They talk about why the South is the frontline for the rest of the country, why local organizing beats national outrage, and why the playbook Aftyn is running is borrowed directly from the civil rights movement she studies in Eyes on the Prize. This conversation goes well beyond Tennessee. Aftyn shares what it costs to run for higher office as a woman right now, why old-school misogyny has come back into the open, and how she has trained herself to stop reacting and start building. Her guidance for women feeling overstimulated by the news cycle is the same guidance she gives candidates: pick a lane, find your cadre, move at the speed of trust. Her closing call to action is a charge every founder and operator should hear: get off the sidelines, get your hands dirty, and build the bench for the women who come next. This episode is for the woman who feels the urgency in her bones, who is tired of reacting to every headline, and who is ready to plant her work somewhere it can actually grow. In this episode, you'll hear: * Why the states with the fewest women in government have the most dangerous policy for women * How Aftyn went from the UN refugee agency in Geneva to one of Tennessee's most-watched legislative seats * Why she dressed as Marie Antoinette to troll a sitting House Finance chair, and what organizing lesson came out of it * How Tennessee is being used as a testing ground for federal rollbacks of women's rights * Why the Sixth Circuit pipeline matters for every woman, in every state * What the civil rights movement teaches us about using Southern legislation to move a national narrative * Why localization is the strongest antidote to authoritarianism * How to choose a lane when the news cycle is engineered to keep women paralyzed * Why the road to higher office is brutal for women right now, and why she is going to keep walking it * What Gen Z women are getting right that the rest of us need to learn from * Why your greatest legacy as a leader is the people you build the ladder for Episode Resources * The Behn Factor on Substack [https://aftynbehnfortn.substack.com/] * Rep. Aftyn Behn, Tennessee House District 51 [https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/LegislatorInfo/member?district=H51] * Connect with Aftyn Behn on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/aftyn-behn-for-congress/] * Tennessee Justice Center [https://www.tnjustice.org/] * Her Bold Move [https://www.herboldmove.org/] * End Times Fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor in The Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk] * Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown [https://www.akpress.org/emergentstrategy.html] * Eyes on the Prize documentary series, PBS [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/eyesontheprize/] Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (1:30) From organizing to the Tennessee statehouse (3:13) Trolling power as Marie Antoinette (5:58) Why she ran for Congress (7:45) Her agenda and Pot for Potholes (11:19) Reproductive rights inside an electoral autocracy (13:55) Repealing nineteen laws with one ban (16:15) As goes the South, so goes the nation (19:36) Advice for women facing burnout (22:34) Find your people and choose a lane (24:05) The belief she had to release (25:02) Surviving threats and growing thick skin (28:55) Building the bench down ballot (31:16) Substack and how to support

How a Political Strategist Funds the Women Nobody Else Will

What happens to the policies that shape women's lives when the rooms making them are 73% men? In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea sits down with Jordan Zaslow, Founder and Executive Director of Her Bold Move, the fastest-growing support organization for women running for office across the country. Jordan started this work in 2020 with a volunteer coalition that produced more than 75 pro bono campaign ads for women candidates in red states. What she heard from those women became the foundation for a different kind of organization. One built around the front-end gap in the candidate pipeline. One that supports women in the races no one else is paying attention to. Jordan and Andrea trace the through line that Her Bold Move's research has confirmed: the states with the fewest women in government have the most dangerous policies for women. They talk about why a single woman in a room of men cannot move the needle the way a critical mass of women can, why local offices produce change faster than Congress and why building infrastructure for the women already running matters more than chasing the highest-profile races. This conversation goes well beyond politics. Jordan shares how she runs a fast-growing organization while raising young kids, why she has stopped trying to manage the chaos and started leaning into it and why the algorithm feeding women fear is one of the opposition's most effective tools. Her closing call to action is one every female founder and executive should hear: notice when women are missing from a room. Ask why. Then do something about it. This episode is for the woman who wants more than one seat at the table, who feels paralyzed by the news cycle and who is ready to channel that energy into something the algorithm cannot take from her. In this episode, you'll hear: * Why the states with the fewest women in government have the most dangerous policies for women * How Her Bold Move was built from hundreds of hours of postmortems with women who ran for office * Why the front end of the candidate pipeline is the most underfunded part of the system * How one woman in a room full of men cannot move the needle the way a critical mass of women can * Why local officals produce tangible change faster than anything happening in Washington * How a network of past candidates becomes infrastructure for the women running next * Why image-based digital abuse is a blind spot for male legislators and why women see it first * How 60 women Democrats in West Virginia are reshaping a state legislature that is 11% women today * What lived experience teaches us about which policies actually get prioritized * Why doom scrolling is the opposition's most effective tool against women * Why asking "why aren't there more women here?" is leadership, not complaint Episode Resources * Her Bold Move [https://www.herboldmove.org/] * Volunteer or apply for the Fellowship [https://www.herboldmove.org/get-involved] * Her Bold Move on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/herboldmove/] * Connect with Jordan Zaslow on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-zaslow-a2986a18/] * Jordan Zaslow’s WIWYTK LinkedIn Feature [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrealjohnston_please-meet-jordan-zaslow-and-her-bold-move-ugcPost-7295167153559769088-TPrp?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACagM3cBO8Ve7UWBjkQQLAYWXEiGrzlC8yQ] Timestamps (0:00) Welcome and intro to Jordan Zaslow (0:12) Opening remarks and the mission's urgency (1:52) Defining the Her Bold Move mission (3:12) From pandemic ads to political advocacy (6:54) Candidate networks and digital community infrastructure (8:26) Empowering the next generation through fellowships (10:13) Why building the local candidate bench matters (12:14) Research on critical mass in governance (15:31) Addressing digital abuse and legislative blind spots (17:44) Women leading policy on their own bodies (18:47) Trailblazing at the Harvard WECode conference (22:10) Reshaping West Virginia with sixty women leaders (23:50) Tennessee political shifts and the Aftyn Behn story (25:31) Navigating motherhood by leaning into the chaos (26:40) Actionable ways to fund local female candidates (28:40) Questioning the absence of women in leadership (29:22) Combating doom scrolling to protect mental health (30:41) Final thoughts and host call to action

Closing the Maternal Health Gap: Underfunded, Understudied and Expecting More

There is a moment in every career when the challenge stops being someone else's problem to solve. For Aimee Corso, Senior Vice President of Growth at Mirvie, that moment happened at the intersection of the most underfunded corner of medicine and one of the most consequential windows of a woman's life: pregnancy.  In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea and Aimee unpack why pregnancy is not just a joyous event but a powerful diagnostic window into a woman's future health, how RNA-powered diagnostics can predict complications like preeclampsia before symptoms appear and what it looks like to bet your career on changing a system where 80% of maternal deaths are still preventable. Aimee has spent 20+ years taking what science proves and making sure it actually reaches people. She built that skill in the lab. Sharpened it at agencies and across two of Amazon’s largest healthcare initiatives. Tested it as a Chief Marketing Officer. And then made the boldest call of her career: walking away from one of the most resourced platforms in healthcare to join a pre-commercial startup in pregnancy health. Not because it was the safe decision. Because she saw where the science is going and who is finally funding it. In this episode, listeners will hear: * Personalized pregnancy care starts with data – and data gives you agency. Pregnancy is not just a joyous event: it’s a diagnostic window. The more you know about your own body, the more control you have over your outcomes, during pregnancy and beyond, before a crisis happens. * The US maternal health crisis is preventable. 80% of maternal deaths don't have to happen. Awareness and advocacy are the starting line. * Advocate loudly. Women of color are disproportionately not heard when they report symptoms. Every woman needs to know her biology and push back on a system that defaults to generic risk guidelines. * Translation is as important as the science itself. Healthcare needs more than researchers. It needs communicators, marketers and operators to truly have an impact. Don't count yourself out because you're not a clinician. * Career passion is not cliché — it's purposeful. When layoffs happen, companies pivot and startups lose funding, passion is the mechanism that keeps you moving. Build your career around it on purpose. * Block time for self-care.  Don’t rely on your good intentions. Put restoration in your calendar or it doesn't happen. Resources & Connections * Connect with Aimee Corso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimee-corso-69a9001/] * Read Aimee’s WIWYTK Editorial Feature on LinkedIn [https://lnkd.in/eUbn889U] * Mirvie [https://www.mirvie.com/] — focused on RNA-based prediction of pregnancy complications * Connect with Andrea Johnston on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrealjohnston] * https://www.fuelforfemalefounders.com [https://www.fuelforfemalefounders.com] Enjoyed This Episode? Leave a review. Share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear this, especially one who is pregnant, planning to be, or has a daughter who may be someday. And join the conversation on LinkedIn and Instagram.