Story & Lesson Highlights with Leslie Forde of The business is everywhere

We recently had the chance to connect with Leslie Forde and have shared our conversation below.

Leslie, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
Dance.

Dance and music were an important part of my childhood and when I make the space for it, I still feel that same sense of youthful joy. Although I don’t dance as often as I would like to, occasionally I will take time before bed or when I’m cooking to turn the music up and move.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I completely burned out when I returned to work after my second child was born. At the time, I would forget driving to work most days and sometimes, race up the stairs of my office building to the mother’s room, only to realize that I had left the breast pump at home. It was the first time in my life when people who didn’t know me, asked if I was okay. I was visibly eroding and struggled to understand how my family could thrive while I felt unable to care for myself in the same way. This experience, led me to become obsessed with the challenge many mothers face, making time to care for their mental, physical and emotional health after having kids.

Over two years after burning out, I came up with the idea for the “Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs” a visual framework that shows how mothers prioritize care for our children and their milestones over our own sleep, movement, stress management, or healthy adult relationships. Although many of us work for years to establish ourselves professionally and start families, it’s not obvious how to combine hands-on motherhood, with ambition, career growth and self-care.

I’ve now run research studies to learn why it’s so challenging for over 8 years and have distilled the wisdom into a new book, Repair With Self-Care: Your Guide to the Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s the deep, self-paced guide for mothers I wish I had to understand ‘how’ to care for their own health in parallel with growth in their careers.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was an artist. I wrote poetry, novels, danced, and played instruments until I was given the message that it wasn’t a ‘responsible’ career path and that I’d need to choose differently to have financial stability.

What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
I thought the “have it all” myth many of us learned in college, that combining explosive professional growth with hands-on attentive motherhood would be effortless, was real. I didn’t prepare for the shift in how I would need to work, grow or care for my physical and emotional health. I always had a lot of energy, determination and curiosity pre-kids which served me well through most of my professional life. However, after having children it became impossible to throw hours at career challenges, because I no longer had the same amount of discretionary time or sleep. Once I burned out, and took a huge pay cut to downshift from what felt like my ‘dream job’ at the time, I realized had to find a different strategy to honor my career ambitions, gifts and deep responsibility I have to my children.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
So many “smart people” believe that setting and keeping personal boundaries is “the answer” to being overworked or exhausted. The reality is, boundary setting is important but very contextual. Having a certain amount of social power or positional power in the workplace, often defines whether or not your boundaries are accepted. When women set boundaries, they’re often not respected, especially for women of color or those who are less represented in senior leadership roles. Once you become a parent or caregiver, boundaries are really important to manage your time effectively and care for your own wellbeing, but it doesn’t mean that you will live or work in environments where the boundaries you lay down are honored.

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. How do you know when you’re out of your depth?
I’ve learned to recognize when the results I seek are taking too long or the costs to my mental energy and health are too high. There are many good reasons, especially as an entrepreneur, to hire people with the right expertise to support you when it’s feasible to do so.

It’s true as a mother, wife, friend, sister and daughter as well. Although asking for help is difficult for me, I’m very comfortable researching, finding and seeking the right expertise for what I need to accomplish in my personal and professional life. Whether that’s listening to a podcast to learn about search engine optimization, finding specialists to help my kids navigate within their academic lives, figuring out the right technology required for my wellness app or understanding how to be compliant collecting sales tax. I’m about to publish my first book and everything about the process, from finding an agent to the right publisher was new and I needed to learn from others. Whenever possible, find the people or resources with the right experience to ease your journey and accelerate your progress.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://MomsHierarchyofNeeds.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moms_hierarchy_of_needs
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/momshierarchyofneeds
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/momshierarchy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MomsHierarchyOfNeeds/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MomsHierarchyofNeeds/
• Other: https://momshierarchyofneeds.com/repair-with-self-care/