This week I sat down with Sarah Peck to discuss the work life balance, especially as a female in the entrepreneur world.

Sarah is a writer, startup advisor, and yoga teacher based in New York City. She’s the founder and executive director of Startup Pregnant, a media company documenting the stories of women’s leadership across work and family. She hosts the weekly Startup Pregnant podcast, and she and her partner in life and work are the instigators behind More Women’s Voices, a website that promotes women speakers and entrepreneurs. Previously, she worked at Y Combinator backed One Month, Inc, a company that teaches people to code in 30 days, and prior, as a writing and communications consultant.

She’s a 20-time All-American swimmer who successfully swam the Escape from Alcatraz nine separate times, once wearing only a swim cap and goggles to raise $33k for charity: water. To date, she’s written for more than 75 different web publications and and has delivered speeches and workshops at Penn, UVA, Berkeley, Harvard, Year of the X, Craft & Commerce, WDS, and more. One recent viral essay, The Art of Asking, has been used across tech companies and product teams to train teams in clear communications. She’s currently writing a memoir of her experience working in the tech startup world while she was pregnant with her first kid.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

• How Sarah got into the startup world and what drives her
• A big issue women run into when getting ahead in their careers
• The common thread Sarah sees throughout her audience
• If it's possible to balance all that life throws at you
• The connection between being a mess and a masterpiece
• The naked truth about how Sarah raised $30K for charity
• Going from scraping by to feeling financially secure
• The real questions to ask yourself when evaluating the type of work you are doing
• Where the idea for Startup Pregnant came from
• The financial agreement Sarah and her partner made while navigating startups
• How to enjoy parental leave for beyond the infant stage
• The importance of being intentional when crafting and building a business
• A big research mistake people make when starting a business
• How growing slow can be a really good thing for your business

LINKS WE MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

• Y Combinator
• Cheryl Strayed
• Educated
• An American Marriage
• Laura Roeder

GET SOCIAL WITH SARAH AND LET HER KNOW YOU HEARD ABOUT HER HERE

• Startup Pregnant
• Sarah’s Website
• Sarah’s e-mail
• Instagram
• Twitter