Have you ever made a choice that felt completely right to you — but everyone around you thought you were giving up? Have you ever wondered if slowing down and leaning in could actually be the same move?

Neha Ruch was fresh out of Stanford Business School, climbing fast, and checking every box the Lean In era told her to check. Then she had her son on New Year's Day 2016 — and in the fog of new motherhood, three o'clock in the morning, at the end of the internet, something cracked open. Not a crisis. A clarity. All I need to be is myself. And this kid loves me for it. So she downshifted. Not for her son. For herself. And the world had a lot of opinions about it.

What followed was a decade-long slow build — a Squarespace site, a weekly link roundup, five Instagram posts, and a quiet but fierce belief that ambitious women who make room for family life deserve better than the binary they'd been handed. That belief became a bestselling book, The Power Pause, a movement, and a membership community rewriting what it means to be a high-achieving woman in the messy middle of work and family life. Neha isn't anti-ambition. She's anti-one-size-fits-all. And in this episode, she makes the case that caregiving isn't a career gap — it's a leadership lab.

Tune In For:

• Why Neha chose to downshift after Stanford — and why it had nothing to do with what was "better for her son"
• How motherhood threatens every identity pillar of high-achieving women — productivity, spontaneity, fitness, relevance — and what to do when it happens to you
• The Harvard Business Review research that might be the most healing data point working moms have never heard (spoiler: it's not about hours)
• "Pause within a pause" — what happened when Neha's second child destabilized everything she'd built, and why "keeping the lights on" is a completely valid strategy
• Why the Power Pause didn't hit the New York Times bestseller list — and the honest, still-raw conversation about gold stars, success metrics, and rewiring your own wiring
• How to frame a career pause in a job interview — and what Neha wishes every employer knew about the non-traditional leadership skills caregiving actually builds
• The "write your ideal day in five years" exercise for anyone whose self-worth is tied to their productivity
• Why comparing yourself to others signals insecurity — and the one shift that turns envy into fuel

About Neha Ruch

Neha Ruch is the founder of Mother Untitled, author of the bestselling book The Power Pause, and a speaker and advocate redefining ambition for the modern mother. After graduating from Stanford Business School and stepping back from a fast-track career to raise her children, Neha built a movement — and eventually a membership community — dedicated to showing that professional pauses and downshifts are a strategic, feminist, and deeply creative choice. Her work has helped thousands of women reclaim their identity, their confidence, and their careers on their own terms.

Resources & Links

• 📖 The Power Pause (book): Available wherever books are sold
• 🌐 Free resources: thepowerpause.com
• 💛 Membership community: thepowerpause.com/me
• 📸 Follow Neha on Instagram: @neharuch
• 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen

Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom and Walk West

🌿 Soulful Sidebar: Rewriting the Resume Gap

The cultural image of a woman "on pause" hasn't been updated since the 1970s. We inherited June Cleaver. But today's woman stepping back from the workforce is likely coming in with 8–10 years of professional experience — and layering on skills that don't show up on a LinkedIn profile: crisis management, negotiation, logistics, community building, and a kind of perspective that only comes from being fully responsible for another human life.

Neha's challenge to employers — and to the women themselves: Stop calling it a gap. Start calling it what it is. A power pause. A leadership lab. A season that didn't pause the growth. It just changed the classroom.