Happy Friday!

Sarah here. Last week’s newsletter was a beautiful tribute to Luscious Mother and I remain one proud Mama. As we fully transition to focus singularly on LUMO and explore the data we collected from the Expecting Moms Online Program Beta, we’ve been deep in conversation around pregnancy, maternity leave, being a working mom and the ways in which motherhood has uniquely prepared us to be nimble, powerful contributors and leaders in the workforce.

So I asked my team the question:

What did you learn about work from motherhood?

Mboone said: I am better at my job because I am a mother.

Before I was a mother I thought I had done hard things. I now know that my professional job is so easy! Motherhood has given me so much depth and insight into who I am as well as my own power – I am “unbwogable.”

Unbwogable (adj): unshakable or indomitable–from the Kenyan word (luo language) bwogo, meaning scare or shake

Dionne shared: My confidence as a project manager, leader went way up!

I’ll never forget when I was so afraid to tell my boss at the time I was pregnant because I had just accepted the job. However, I was fortunate to have a boss who had recently had a baby herself — she would literally hang up a sign on her office door, “Pumping in Session”, so I should have known better. She was thrilled for me, so supportive and I’ll never forget when she told me, being a mother makes you an even better project manager.

From KB: I learned that a “good enough” job wasn’t good enough anymore.

Doing what I loved 30% of the time (and budgets and time sheets the rest of the time) was nowhere near good enough. If I was going to spend 40 hours a week away from this miracle I made WITH MY BODY, then my work needed to set my hair on fire.

Becoming a mom gave me perspective. I couldn’t be on my email all the time anymore – I just couldn’t. I had a life and it was WAY more important. As a result, I developed….boundaries!

I became a better leader because I respected my people and their personal lives, and I never asked them to put work first. I know it gave them a lot of freedom…and permission.

For me, it was all about being a creator. Creating life, creating work I loved . . . Creating the experience I wanted EVERYWHERE! Motherhood gave me the permission and audacity to ask for what I had a vision for in my life. It was no longer about what was polite or convenient, it became about what I needed and wanted – and figuring out ways to make it happen. Motherhood made me an incredibly creative business person – because most business, like motherhood, is completely made up.

We’d love to hear from you. Reply to this email with your experience of how motherhood made you better professionally.

With love and gratitude,

Sarah + Anna