[BEST OF] The 75% Rule and Other Lessons in Doing It All, Differently with Lexi Reese

[BEST OF] The 75% Rule and Other Lessons in Doing It All, Differently with Lexi Reese

Editor’s note: We’re revisiting some of our favorite conversations from the archive this summer . Enjoy! Drumroll for greatness – Lexi Reese [https://www.lexireese.com/meet-lexi/] joins the pod this week! Lexi is the co-founder and CEO of Lanai [https://www.withlanai.com/], an AI Empowerment Platform that helps enterprises transform AI experiments into systematic success. Before Lanai, she led the Global Programmatic Ad Business at Google and then jumped to be the COO of Gusto [https://gusto.com/] (a unicorn, but don’t call it a unicorn as you’ll hear Lexi explain in our interview). Always one to look for ways to do more to help others thrive, after Gusto and before Lanai, she launched a campaign for California's U.S. Senate seat. We’re tired just thinking about all of this because in addition to occupying big seats at big tables (and beautifully trying to make more seats for others) – Lexi is the mother of two girls. And for her, motherhood has been a superpower. Helping her become an even better leader (and she’s already one of the best!). As she says in this interview: “I think of motherhood as a leadership laboratory because a great leader makes people better first in their presence, but then it lasts in their absence. It stays with you. And that is what motherhood is.” In our convo we discuss: * Going from film-making and finance to the tech c-suite + a run at politics * Motherhood as a leadership laboratory * Why America sees Mothers as a bug in the system * How kids clarified her mission to leave the world better than she found it  * How to operate at 75% when your norm is 125% * The role her mother and her immigrant background played in shaping how she wanted to operate in the world ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod [https://www.instagram.com/themotherspod] ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack [https://sarasedgwickbrown.substack.com/]⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasedgwickbrown/] The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

The Problem Nobody Bothered to Solve with Patrice Meagher

Patrice Meagher is the founder and CEO of MilkMate [https://milkmate.com/] and a former Executive Vice President at CBRE, where she spent nearly 15 years shaping the commercial real estate landscape in Manhattan – while becoming a mother of four. She was, by almost any measure, succeeding. And she was also, by her own account, quietly losing the plot. Not because she wasn't capable. But because the system around her was never designed for what she was carrying. MilkMate has invented the category of BPaaS – breast pumping as a service – providing employers with a hospital-grade, fully managed pumping solution that saves working mothers an average of 60 minutes a day. Before she built it, Patrice pumped in IT closets, forgot parts, missed meetings, and arrived at a swim meet – parking ticket and all – just in time to watch her daughter touch the wall after the race was already over. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually costs to build a demanding career while breastfeeding, commuting, producing, and trying to hold it all together. We talk about the mentors – often men – who quietly shaped the direction of her career. We talk about what partnership really looks like inside a marriage when both people are building, and how one person's belief can be the thing that makes a risk feel possible. And we talk about what finally pushed Patrice to leave a world she loved to build something she believed in more. She didn't leave corporate America in defeat. She left because she could finally see the problem clearly enough to solve it. That's the thing about motherhood. Once it shows you what's broken, you can't unsee it. To learn more about MilkMate [https://milkmate.com/], follow them on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/milkmateinc/] (@milkmateinc) and LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/themilkmate/]. And if your workplace could benefit from MilkMate, speak up! You may be eligible for a $1,000 referral bonus if MilkMate gets installed through your recommendation. Patrice and her team have made it easy: you can find the employee referral toolkit at www.milkmate.com/for-employees/ [https://milkmate.com/for-employees/]. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod [https://www.instagram.com/themotherspod] ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack [https://sarasedgwickbrown.substack.com/]⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasedgwickbrown/] The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

The Work You Never Planned to Do with Nasha Fitter | Motherhood, Rare Disease & Purpose

What happens when motherhood asks you to do work you never imagined? For Nasha Fitter, it meant stepping into a world of rare disease, medical research, caregiving, and advocacy – not because she chose it, but because her daughter needed her to. After her daughter Amara was diagnosed with FOXG1 syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects brain development, movement, speech, and cognition, Nasha found herself navigating a healthcare system full of gaps, impossible decisions, and information families are often left to uncover on their own. In this episode, Sara sits down with Nasha Fitter – Co-Founder & CEO of the FOXG1 Research Foundation [https://www.foxg1research.org/] and Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer of Citizen Health [https://www.citizen.health/] – for a conversation about caregiving, partnership, resentment, self-sacrifice, and what it means to build a life – and find purpose – inside circumstances you never would have chosen. Together, they explore the invisible labor of parenting a medically complex child, the emotional weight of becoming your child’s advocate, and how some of life’s hardest experiences can become the clearest roadmap toward the work we’re here to do. They discuss: • Why women are often conditioned to confuse self-sacrifice with love • The importance of building more help and support than you think you need • Resentment in partnerships – and what it may be trying to tell us • The hidden labor of caregiving and rare disease parenting • What happens when parents are forced to become medical experts • Turning personal crisis into advocacy, action, and infrastructure • How technology and AI can help close critical healthcare gaps • The power of purpose in holding a life together Today, through both the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Citizen Health, Nasha is helping build a better future for patients and families – accelerating treatments, improving access to care, and making rare disease less isolating, more informed, and more human. Episode links: Download Citizen Health and explore Ari, their AI assistant: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/citizen-health/id6740156339 [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/citizen-health/id6740156339] Follow the FOXG1 research journey: https://www.foxg1research.org/ [https://www.foxg1research.org/] Support FOXG1 Research: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/foxg1researchfoundation/ [https://secure.qgiv.com/for/foxg1researchfoundation/] ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod [https://www.instagram.com/themotherspod] ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack [https://sarasedgwickbrown.substack.com/]⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasedgwickbrown/] The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

The Cost of Always Being On with Lizzie Assa, MS Ed

What happens when toxic productivity reaches childhood? As parents, many of us feel pressure to enrich, entertain, supervise, and optimize every moment of our children's lives – all while navigating the demands of work, family, and everything else competing for our attention. In this episode, Sara sits down with parenting coach, educator, founder of The Workspace for Children [https://www.workspaceforchildren.com/], and writer behind one of Substack's most popular parenting publications [https://theworkspaceforchildren.substack.com/], Lizzie Assa, MS Ed. A former teacher with a master's degree in education from Bank Street College, former Head of Play and Development at Lalo, author of But I'm Bored! [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775810/but-im-bored-by-lizzie-assa-msed/], and mother of three, Lizzie has spent years helping parents better understand how children learn, grow, and develop. Together, they explore what happens when our discomfort with boredom, uncertainty, and unstructured time spills into the way we parent—and why creating more space to explore, experiment, and become may be one of the most important gifts we can give both children and ourselves. They discuss how our ability to trust our children is often connected to our ability to trust ourselves, what both children and adults gain when every moment doesn't have a purpose, and why achievement culture may be shaping childhood in ways we rarely stop to question. In this episode: • Why boredom has become so uncomfortable for modern adults • The connection between trusting yourself and trusting your child • What parents get back when children learn to play independently • What we gain when every moment doesn't have a purpose • Why not every hobby needs to become an achievement track • How achievement culture shapes the way we work, live, and parent • How play, curiosity, and experimentation shape a meaningful life • Building a career around education, creativity, and family Whether you're raising young children, navigating a demanding career, or simply questioning the pressure to always be productive, Lizzie's perspective is both practical and deeply refreshing. Episode links: * Substack: theworkspaceforchildren.substack.com [https://theworkspaceforchildren.substack.com/] * Website: www.workspaceforchildren.com [http://www.workspaceforchildren.com] * Book: But I’m Bored! [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775810/but-im-bored-by-lizzie-assa-msed/] available on Amazon and wherever books are sold: https://www.amazon.com/But-Bored-Independent-Confident-Resilient/dp/B0F4QDZKHT ****** ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to Sara's Substack for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Introducing The Mothers with Sara Brown

After leaving a 12-year career at Google, Sara Brown became fascinated by two questions: Who are mothers when nobody is asking about their children? And who are successful women when nobody is asking about their success? On her new podcast, Sara sits down with influential women shaping industries, institutions, communities, and culture (while raising kids!) to explore the person behind the titles, accomplishments, and expectations. In candid conversations, guests share the moments that shaped them, the tradeoffs they wrestle with, the identities they're still uncovering, and the lessons they've learned about work, ambition, purpose, power, relationships, caregiving, and building a meaningful life. Together, these conversations reveal something often missing from both career stories and parenting stories: the full humanity of women navigating both. Whether you're leading a company, raising children, questioning your next chapter, or simply trying to understand yourself more deeply, The Mothers invites you to get curious about who you are, what you want, and why you want it — and to build a life that honors those answers. Raw, smart, and deeply human, The Mothers blends the emotional honesty of We Can Do Hard Things, the business insight of How I Built This, and the intellectual depth of Brené Brown. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers wherever you listen 💬 Share the show with someone who would love it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod [https://www.instagram.com/themotherspod] ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack [https://sarasedgwickbrown.substack.com/]⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasedgwickbrown/] The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.