{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Making It with Jess Ekstrom","title":"The Power Pause: Why Stepping Back Might Be the Most Ambitious Thing You Ever Do","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2377,"description":"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 youThe 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 strategyWhy 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...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UeJn2_qX0SbHd9je8M1i3xYiHk_fwyHMoyDCBRs8oF8/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mNTBk/MGE4MGJlZWNlNDM5/ZjAxOTM5MzA2ODI3/MzUwMS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}