The Broad Experience

More and more working women are taking care of an ill or aging parent. And while there's plenty of discussion about working mothers and what can be done to support them, there's almost none about working daughters. This episode aims to change that. In it we meet three women who've become caregivers. Liz O'Donnell is the founder of online community Working Daughter; Maria Toropova is part of that community and was just 29 when her mother got sick; and Kate Schutt let her music career slide as she cared for her mother during the last years of her life.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A few years ago I spoke to former Vermont governor Madeleine Kunin for a show called Politics is Power. When I took some of her career advice and wrote it up in a LinkedIn post, it got hundreds of (positive) comments. So when I heard she had a new memoir out about being in her eighties, I couldn't wait to talk to her again. In this show we discuss what it's like to officially be an old woman, and talk about some of the highs and lows of reaching your eighties. We discuss how she's changed as a person and go back in time to her childhood, to parts of her career, and to the time she became single again at 60 after years of marriage. She found love again at 71. Being 85, she says, 'is not what I pictured in my mind.'  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is the second of two shows on women and the coaching industry. This time we find out about one novice coachee's first experience of leadership coaching at work. We talk to management expert Anne Libby and coach trainer Terry Maltbia about why coaching has become so popular in the last couple of decades, especially among women - and why anyone picking a coach should ask questions first. And we meet Christine Whelan, a professor of consumer science and an expert on the self-help industry.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The coaching industry has been exploding over the last several years. Life coaches, wellness coaches, career coaches, executive coaches - it can seem like everyone's hiring a coach for something. And the industry is dominated by women. This is the first of two shows in which we look at why coaching has become so popular and why women in particular want to become coaches, and clients.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Right now a lot of us are thinking about our intentions for the new year. Plenty of people have a side project they're hoping to get off the ground - it could be a novel, a new business, or perhaps you just want to learn to paint. Whatever it is, you have to make it happen on top of the rest of your life. Which is where the problems start. In this episode cartoonist, teacher, and author Jessica Abel talks about how to bring focus to a crowded life so you can actually turn your idea into a reality.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this show we take on a taboo topic - pregnancy loss. Around a fifth of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and many women are dealing with the after effects alone, while they're at work. Some go to work as if nothing had happened. Others (especially outside the US) take some time off. But it can be awkward when they get back. As a culture we're not great at comforting people who've been through a loss of any kind. But we can always learn. In this episode we meet three women from three different countries, each with a different experience of pregnancy loss and the workplace.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

So many women stick around in jobs they've had for years, unsure of their next step. In the first part of this episode we look at why it can be so hard to move on even when we know we should. In part two we talk about emotions in the workplace. Is it OK to cry openly (really?) or should we stick with the conventional advice to flee to the bathroom? We learn about gender and the science of tears. And we meet someone who has to watch her tone of voice and expression pretty much all the time for fear of being misunderstood.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Many women will take time out of the workforce at some point in their careers. But getting back in can be notoriously hard. In this show we meet Lisa Unwin, co-author of the book 'She's Back'. We discuss how to change your attitude to persuade an employer (and yourself) of your worth, how to frame an absence from the workforce, and why career and motherhood have a lot in common with a game of chess.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The US midterm elections are just around the corner. In this episode we meet two women running for office for the first time, Suzanna Coleman and Morgan Murtaugh - one Democrat, one Republican. They're from different generations and different parts of the country. Each hopes to unseat an incumbent who's been around for a long time.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the early '90s Hana Schank and Elizabeth Wallace graduated from college with big dreams for the future. But more than 20 years later they didn't feel like success stories. Career and family life felt messy and underwhelming. But surely their friends from college had made it work - maybe they could pick up some tips? Hana and Liz set out to interview the women they'd graduated with to find out how they'd channeled their ambition over the years and what their stories can teach the rest of us.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Why is it so hard to combine a career with military life? That's the question we look at in this show, brought to you by Stacy Raine, a military wife herself. Women who marry a US service member often start out with careers of their own. But as time goes by and families move around the country, military spouses find it tough to find work. This show looks at the reasons behind that, what we can do to change the status quo, and why the rest of us should care.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Women-only workspaces are becoming more and more popular for freelancers and entrepreneurs. One such space, The Wing, has garnered a lot of press and is opening branches in multiple US cities as well as abroad. For fans, these spaces are a haven for professional women. But others say a women-only office is no triumph for equality. In this show I visit the Brooklyn branch of The Wing and meet up with one of its members, podcaster Mallory Kasdan. I also talk to former TBE guest Leigh Stringer, a workplace expert, and to UK-based Amy Rowe. Amy works from a co-working space herself, but it has plenty of men - and she likes it that way.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We say it repeatedly - that we're 'crazy busy' and 'don't have time' for various things we enjoy, or used to. The pressure of work and life is too much. Or is it?In this show I talk to author and journalist Laura Vanderkam about women and time management. Her book is I Know How She Does It - How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time. Laura says many of us buy into a negative storyline about what's (im)possible as a worker and a parent. She argues there are ways to have a senior job and a family and not lose your mind - you just have to think creatively.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Neda Frayha landed her first job as a physician she didn't even think to negotiate. The money was a big jump from what she'd been earning as a medical resident. Who was she to complain? Then years later she learned she was on less money than her peers. In this episode Neda talks about her route to becoming a negotiator. We discuss her fears along the way, the need to be liked and the concern that she was being 'too pushy' (she wasn't).This is the second of two episodes on the art of negotiation.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Women hear that we negotiate less than men, that we're not as good at it as men, that we get backlash when we do negotiate. All such negative stuff. Yet there's so much power in negotiation. It's a vital tool to get us what we want at work and everywhere else. In this show I sit down with Natalie Reynolds to demystify negotiation and talk about how women can make it work for them - in their own way. That includes not accepting 'no' as a final answer. Natalie is CEO of negotiation consultancy Advantage Spring and author of the book We Have a Deal. This is the first of a two-part show.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Empower yourself. You will be underestimated and misunderstood. Do it anyway." Those were some of the first words I heard Dana Canedy speak at a women's careers event earlier this year. In this show I ask Dana to expand on that advice. She was the first person in her family to go to college. She had dreamed of being a writer from childhood, and had a long career in journalism, much of it at the New York Times. But along the way she experienced terrible loss. Now she is a single mother to a 12-year-old boy and she runs the Pulitzer Prizes, the first woman and person of color to do so. In this episode she talks about resilience, handling yourself at work, and the joy of giving back.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All the career manuals say it: to get ahead on the work front, you have to keep expanding your network. But for a lot of women there's something cringey about networking, from walking up to strangers and introducing yourself to the feeling of fakeness networking can bring. In this show I talk to three guests about how to get over a horror of networking and why you should bother.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Women, and particularly women of color, get lumbered with most of the office housework. Stuff like ordering lunch, clearing up after a meeting, or sending out meeting notes. But office housework is also the unexciting stuff organizations need to get done - necessary, humdrum tasks that won't burnish your resume. Women disproportionately take on those tasks. In this show I speak with journalist Ruchika Tulshyan about what women can do to push back on office housework, while treading the ever-fine line between deference and standing up for themselves.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is the second part of a two-episode show on women's pay. In this one we talk about why companies should be more transparent about their pay practices. Payscale's Lydia Frank says you don't have to brandish everyone's paychecks, but let's end the silence around compensation. It's not rude to discuss money at work - people want to make sure they're being paid fairly. And we talk to University of Iceland professor Thorgerdur Einasdottir about Iceland's new equal pay law. It puts the onus on employers, not employees, to ensure men and women are getting paid the same for equal work. Finally we come back to negotiation: is it fair that women have to negotiate for better pay when studies show many of us hate doing it and fare worse then men? Comments welcome as usual.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This show kicks off a two-part exploration of the pay gap and women's ongoing efforts to get equal pay for equal work. First, we talk to researcher and author Yasemin Besen-Cassino. She found out the pay gap begins a lot earlier than you might think - at age 14. (Male babysitters get paid more than female ones!) Then we meet Lydia Frank from Payscale to talk about the importance of pay transparency and why even women with MBA degrees often fail to get a raise.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.