Roots & Realities: Stories of Motherhood & Marketing

Emma Huschka is the founder and CEO of Fiddle Leaf Marketing, a boutique paid media agency in Portland, Oregon, specializing in Meta, Google Ads, and other paid media channels for women-owned small and mid-size businesses. A former VP of Paid Social with 10 years in paid advertising, she's on a mission to empower women founders to grow with confidence. Her agency also offers FiddleStats, a cross-channel reporting dashboard, and Mainstreet Ads, a self-paced course that teaches small business owners to run their own ads.

What does it actually take to step away from your career and then find your way back in?

In this episode, Emma sits down with Meghan, Search Marketing Manager at Fiddle Leaf and part of Emma's own team, for an honest look at the career-gap-and-return story so many moms live quietly. Meghan came up at a large agency in Toronto, stepped away to have her son, and then re-entered the workforce and landed at Fiddle Leaf. This one is a bit of an inside look, with two people who work together every day talking openly about the part of the journey that rarely gets told.

Together they get into what the big-agency years demanded, the decision to take a gap and the fears that came with it, and what that season away actually taught her about identity when you don't have a job title to hold onto. Meghan opens up about the confidence rebuild of coming back, whether the fear of falling behind was as real as it felt, and what made the return feel possible.

She also gets real about what the juggle looks like now with an almost-4-year-old, how the way she works has changed since her agency days, and what she'd tell a mom on a career gap who's quietly terrified she won't be able to come back.

If you've stepped away, or you're wondering whether you could ever step back in, this conversation is for you.

What does ambition look like when you came up in the "work hard, play hard" era, and then became a mom?

In this episode, Emma sits down with Emily Friedman, Sr. Director of Brand Partnerships and Sales at Dear Media, whom she met through the BONDE networking community for accomplished women. Emily drives brand partnerships across audio, video, social, content, and experiential, and before Dear Media she spent nearly a decade at goop working at the intersection of media, wellness, and culture. She's a partnerships strategist, a relationship-builder, and mom to a young daughter.

Together they get into the mental load that ambitious women carry so well that people stop noticing how much it actually is, and the difference between being highly capable and feeling responsible for everything. Emily opens up about how motherhood reshaped what "good at your job" even means to her, how she tells the difference between a healthy work ethic and the tip into burnout, and how she protects her energy in a job that's all about showing up for other people.

She also gets real about what a genuinely sustainable week looks like (not the perfect version), the things she's given herself permission to stop doing, and what she'd say to the mom who's thriving professionally while quietly feeling like she's barely holding it together.

If you're the capable one who carries a lot without anyone realizing it, this conversation is for you.

Connect with Emily:
Follow Emily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-friedman-49b1aa35/

If you've ever wondered why you're exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix, this episode is for you. Emma sits down with Kelsey Whittaker, founder of Lionheart Health Coaching, a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) and Certified Functional Nutritionist who helps women build sustainable habits that actually fit their real lives.

Together they unpack the mental load, that invisible, always-running to-do list moms carry, and what it's quietly doing to women's bodies. Kelsey shares her framework of "energy deposits and withdrawals" for identifying what's draining you versus what fills you back up, and the mindset shifts that help women trade guilt and overwhelm for self-compassion.

Kelsey's path to this work is deeply personal. After 13 years as a senior marketing leader, the sudden loss of her brother pushed her to rethink the legacy she was building, and Lionheart, named in his honor, was born.

In this episode:

• What the mental load actually is, and the physical signs it's catching up with you
• The earliest red flags that you're running on empty (even when you think you're fine)
• Where to spend your energy if you only have ten minutes a day for your health
• One habit Kelsey would tell every mom to stop doing

Connect with Kelsey:
Website: https://www.lionheart-health-coaching.com
Instagram: @lionheart_health_coaching
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lionheart-health-coaching/

Kristin Johnson was born in a small Indiana town to an 18-year-old mom, the kind of beginning where nobody expects much from you. At 21, she became a single mom herself. What followed were years of surviving, barely getting by, and quietly holding onto business dreams she refused to let go of.

In this episode, Kristin shares how she climbed the ranks in hospitality without a college degree, eventually leading fine dining locations and consulting on the side, until COVID shut it all down and a cancer scare with her son changed everything about how she thought about work, life, and what actually matters. From there: a pivot into SaaS project management, a layoff that stung, and an unexpected landing as Executive Director of a national scientific medical research association.

And through all of it, the entrepreneurial dream never died. This year, it finally took root, twice.

Kristin is the founder of Yorn Studio, a consultancy teaching creatives and makers the business skills art school never covered, and Made by Meridian, a line of analog thinking tools for high-functioning women in leadership, with its first product, the Meridian Planner, launching later this year.

We talk about young motherhood, building a career your own way, the ventures that didn't work before the ones that did, and why your timeline doesn't have to look like anyone else's.

Connect with Kristin:
Yorn Studio: https://yornstudio.com/

Meridian Planner: https://www.meridianbound.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yornstudio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kljohnson014/

What happens to ambition when the old definition stops fitting?

In this episode, Emma sits down with Lauren Winter, Head of Operations, Advertising at Vox Media, for the kind of conversation that doesn't require any explaining, the kind where two women who get it can finally say the quiet parts out loud.

Lauren leads a large operations org, is raising three kids, and has lived through the version of working motherhood that never makes it onto LinkedIn.

Together they get into the mental load women carry while still performing at the top of their game, what burnout has actually looked like up close, and the identity shifts nobody warns you about. Lauren opens up about how becoming a mom of three reshaped what ambition means to her, how her definition of success has changed, and the routines, boundaries, and hard letting-gos that are helping her thrive in this season, not the highlight-reel version, the real one.

If you've ever held it all together on the outside while quietly wondering how much longer you can keep it up, this one's for you.

Emily Brown started Maren Made at 16 during COVID, out of her basement closet, packing orders between classes. She grew it into a brand with over 20,000 customers and a flagship at Keystone Fashion Mall, all while finishing her degree at Purdue.

In this episode, we get into the real story behind the brand: the unglamorous beginning, the marketing that actually worked, why community has been the real engine, and what it takes to build something while you're still figuring out who you are. We also talk about the decision to open a physical location, balancing Maren Made with school and her role at Profile, and the lessons she learned the hard way.

Find Emily + Maren Made:

www.marenmade.com

@marenmade

In this episode of Roots & Realities, Emma sits down with Leanne Miller to talk about what it really takes to show up online consistently without letting your business take over your life. Leanne shares her journey from photography and nonprofit media work to building a content strategy business that supports women-led brands in showing up with clarity and confidence. Together, they unpack the tension between storytelling and selling, the pressure founders feel to be everywhere at once, and how motherhood reshapes both ambition and success. This conversation is honest, practical, and deeply relatable for any woman building something meaningful while raising a family.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How Leanne built content pillars that feel sustainable, not overwhelming
• The most common mistake founders make with social media
• Where to focus if you only have 30 minutes a week
• Balancing entrepreneurship with motherhood in real life
• Boundaries, burnout, and redefining success as your seasons change

This episode is for the founder who wants growth that feels aligned, content that feels authentic, and a business that supports her life instead of consuming it.

Connect with Leanne

Website: www.leannemillermedia.com

Instagram: @leannemillermedia

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a fellow mom or business owner and leave a review to help more women find Roots & Realities. 💛

In this episode, I chat with Lauren Boss, author of All the Girls I Was Before, about identity, motherhood, and redefining success. We cover the versions of ourselves we grow through, the shifts that come with becoming a mom, and what it takes to claim success on your own terms. Lauren shares encouragement for women who feel stuck in a version of themselves that doesn’t fit anymore.

📖 Get your copy of All The Girls I Was Before

📲 Follow Lauren on Instagram

In this episode of Roots & Realities, I sit down with one of my best friends, Miranda Lehmann, a stay-at-home mom of four boys, to talk honestly about what life at home really looks like.

We dig into the decision to step away from teaching and step fully into motherhood, the wins that make it all worth it, and the challenges that don’t always get talked about out loud. From the daily chaos to the quiet moments of joy, Miranda shares the real of day-to-day mom life.

We also explore the impact and strength of both stay-at-home moms and working moms, releasing expectations, facing down mom guilt, and the importance of finding your community.

This is a heart-to-heart conversation about the hardest job in the world and the women who show up for it every single day.