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Welcome to Season 3 of Bite-Sized Balance! In today's episode, Sarah and I catch up, sharing what we did this summer and some of the life lessons we both learned this past year.

Sarah opens up about a recent loss and her insight into her instinct to try to control everything, and how it serves her better to hold life’s outcomes more loosely. I share an update regarding my emptying nest and the emotions that have accompanied selling my kids’ childhood home and readying them both to leave for their first year of university.

We discuss the importance of learning to trust your gut in midlife. I also share how I'm feeling about another birthday and how the best word to describe how I'm feeling about my 50s is that I have “agency” again. As always, this conversation will resonate and uplift you, and provide a few nuggets to take away and consider in your own journey...

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Dr. L. Carol Scott, PhD. (Psychology) is a TEDx speaker, author, and coach who uses a unique model to help women succeed in their business and personal lives through self-aware emotional and social intelligence.

Carol mixes hundreds of years of child development theory with 21st Century brain imaging research, decades of her own experience with hundreds of developing humans of all ages, and her own lived experience of recovery from childhood trauma and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In this episode of BBB, Carol and I have a fascinating conversation about how the first seven years of our lives impact all aspects of our adulthood, including our business competence, parenting, and personal relationships.

Carol explains the seven assets that we are meant to develop as kids (trust, independence, faith, negotiation, vision, compromise, and acceptance) and how easy it is for us to be missing some of these as adults because of...

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This episode is personal for me. I have seen firsthand the challenges and joys of raising a transgender child. 

In Episode 53, I chat with Cyndi Sweeney and BriAnna Simons, who are both parents of transgender children and advocates for inclusion awareness. Cyndi is my good friend, a writer, educator, journalist, and consultant for beyond binary thinking, and BriAnna is a clinical social worker who specializes in child and play-based therapies. 

Cyndi and BriAnna share the challenges and joys that have come with parenting their children as well as some helpful insight for parents of cis kids around how to raise sensitive allies for transgender children. They discuss their new children’s book, The Pink Balloon, and share resources for families with a member who is questioning their gender identity.

I urge you not to skip this episode. You'll learn something new about a topic most of us know too little about.

...

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In today's episode, I interview Robyn Berman, who pursued a second career in the challenging primary care field of midwifery at the age of 40 while navigating parenthood and midlife (and all that comes with that.) 

I share a bit of my own birth story, and Robyn provides some insight from the midwife and doula perspective. Robyn talks about her recent burnout and decision to leave clinical practice, and what she learned from that. Robyn and I discuss the role of perimenopause and estrogen in their own “midlife rebirths” and reflect back on what we’ve learned in the first half of our lives around balance and stress management as busy working moms.

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There's also a new Bite-Sized Balance Episode today, and it's a really special one. 

My sister Meg and I share our recent experiences in the “sandwich”- raising a herd of teens while caring for a dying parent.

The last few years of our Dad’s degenerative condition included a medi-vac flight home from Florida, a grueling touch-and-go 4-month hospital stay, a year of around-the-clock in-home care, and our Dad's eventual passing two years ago. 

We share our most important lessons learned around navigating the care system, supporting each other and our mom, protecting our own wellness and fulfilling our many other responsibilities as parents and business owners in the process.

While there were lots of tough moments in those few years for our family, there were also so many unexpected gifts, including lots of very funny stories, many of which we share in this episode. 

...

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Amy Risley built a flourishing skincare line now sold exclusively in Sephora stores across North America, but that success came at a price.

With great honesty, Amy shares her biggest regrets and lessons learned as an incredibly busy female entrepreneur and mom of two teens and provides some sage advice to other working moms.

Amy and I discuss Amy’s personal burnout story, the impact of the pandemic on Amy’s balance, and the surprising gifts working from home for the last year has afforded her, including a shift in her relationship with alcohol and unbroken quality time with her children after years of constant traveling for work. 

I loved talking with Amy - we had an easy flow and a lot of shared perspective on women in business and the myth of "doing it all". I think you'll really enjoy this conversation!

Find out more about Amy and Skinfix at https://skinfixinc.com/

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Rachel Sumner is an Executive Coach, Mentor & Education Specialist who supports young people and their families as they make important decisions about life after High School.

As a mother of three, she is acutely aware of the need for better education about the Future of Work so that our children not only survive but thrive in the decades ahead. If you’re a working woman, and/or you’ve got children, you won’t want to miss this fascinating discussion!

Many of the “soft” skills that women typically possess more than men, such as empathy, caring, creativity, and collaboration, cannot be replicated by robots. These skills will therefore be in higher demand as automated workplaces become the norm.

Rachel and I also discuss the connection between burnout and these skills, which women will be increasingly called upon to use on the job as well as at home in the future. We also discuss how we...