Naptime CEO | Building a Life-First Business as a Mom

What if motherhood isn’t a gap in your career, but one of the most transformative leadership experiences you’ll ever have?

Head to the Naptime CEO community on Substack for all the links, resources, and more information from this episode.

In this episode, I’m joined by Anna Johnson, a leadership coach and Heart Management Advocate who helps ambitious professionals step into greater leadership while staying aligned with who they are and how they want to lead. We talk about what it really means to lead from the heart, build inner leadership and self-trust, and create safety within yourself during seasons of transition.

Anna and I also dive into motherhood as a catalyst for personal and professional growth, why asking for help can actually be an act of strength, how to translate the skills you develop during parental leave into career strengths, and the importance of quieting the noise around you so you can hear your own intuition.

Plus, Anna shares simple practices for reconnecting with yourself, asking for more, and trusting the vision before you can see the whole path.

Hope you enjoy this episode <3

Can you build a business in 3 hours a day you find between naps, feeds, and bedtime?

After a decade in a career that had stopped fitting, I found myself writing on the floor beside my five-month-old daughter’s crib - and slowly built a freelance copywriting business in the 60 to 180 minutes a day I could find between naps, feeds, and bedtime.

That experience changed the way I thought about work, ambition, and motherhood.

Because what if you don’t need more time to build something meaningful? What if motherhood isn’t the thing that makes ambition impossible - but the thing that finally makes it clear what you want your ambition to be for?

In this first episode, I’m sharing the story of how I started building a business in the margins of motherhood, and why I believe maternity leave can become a powerful trigger for rethinking the way we work.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why so many women start questioning their careers after becoming mothers - and what may actually be underneath that shift
• How motherhood can become a “bullshit filter” for work that no longer feels meaningful
• What you can realistically build with just one to three focused hours a day
• Why having more time isn’t necessarily the answer - and how a simple system and a single point of focus can change what’s possible
• What an anti-hustle, 20-hour-a-week business can actually look like in practice
• Whether it’s possible to be ambitious and deeply present for your family

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF…

You’re a mother of young children who feels like your old definition of success no longer fits.

You’re done with the churn, the constant pressure to do more, and the idea that building something of your own has to mean sacrificing the life you actually want.

Most of all, this episode is for you if you’re wondering whether there’s another way - one where your business supports your life rather than taking it over.

Read the full story on Substack and join our community of mothers building something of their own, in the margins.

New episodes every other week.

Carrying a big dream around inside you, with no idea where it fits in a day that's already full?

Tired of people talking about you like the ambitious part got left behind in the delivery room?

Questioning whether the 9-to-5 rut where you barely see your kid is actually normal?

Welcome to the Naptime CEO Podcast!

Here we explore what it looks like to build something meaningful of your own — a business, a personal brand, freelance work, a creative project — without making hustle, burnout, or abandoning motherhood the price of success.

I'm Maria. After a decade in a career that had stopped fitting, I started writing on the floor beside my daughter's crib and building a freelance copywriting business in under twenty hours a week.

I don't have it figured out — that's sort of the point. Every other week I sit down with another mother running her own version of this experiment and ask the questions most business advice skips: What does success mean after becoming a mother? Can you build something real in twenty hours a week? What are you no longer willing to sacrifice?

Join our community on Substack — because as mothers we are capable of building extraordinary things, but nobody has to do it the hard way, alone.

New episodes every other week.