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Honest conversations with working mothers about how they really "do it all"
Join us on Substack - https://substack.com/@leaningmyway
Leilia Zegna Interview
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[00:00:00]
Mikenzie: Hello everyone, and welcome to Leaning My Way, a show where I have honest conversations with working mothers about how they really do it all. Today I'm joined by Layla Zenya. Now, Layla's one of the most ambitious and accomplished people I've ever had the privilege of crossing paths with, she's the daughter of Iranian immigrants.
A graduate of Yale and Harvard, a founder of multiple businesses, including her current VC fund, kindred Capital, and a mother of three. Her resume alone could fill a podcast episode, but what made this conversation so meaningful was getting to go beyond those bullet points and hear her full story.
Now there's two themes that stood out to me as we spoke, unexpectedness and authenticity from finding out she was pregnant just weeks after launching Kindred to navigating the early years of motherhood. After her eldest daughter was diagnosed with a rare [00:01:00] genetic health condition, Layla's entry into motherhood came with many challenging and beautiful twists and turns.
In our conversation, Layla reflects on this time of uncertainty and the journey of self-discovery. It led her down. I really appreciated her honest introspection around how raising a child with additional needs, along with two younger children, changed her relationship with work and achievement, and ultimately enabled her to live a more authentic life.
Layla still works and works really hard, but it's because she loves what she does and that fulfillment helps her show up as a more present and grounded mother and business leader. I found that nuance incredibly inspiring.
This was truly a special conversation, and I have no doubt you'll find her story as powerful and inspiring as I did.
So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Layla Zenya.
Leila:
Mikenzie: Good to [00:02:00] see you. Thanks for joining.
Leila: I'm so looking forward to it. Ever since our walk in the park where we talked about this project of yours, I've been really looking forward to being a part of it. So thanks for having me.
Mikenzie: I know I'm so honored that you agreed to do it. I know you have a very busy schedule, so appreciate it. And I think everyone's gonna get a lot from our conversation, from what I know so far. So,
Leila: No pressure.
Mikenzie: No pressure. Yeah, just make it really interesting. No pressure.
Leila: Just make it brilliant. The rest will be
Mikenzie: yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I wanted to actually start with a little bit of your cultural background.
So your parents are Iranian, right?
Leila: Mm-hmm.
Mikenzie: And yougrew up in the US in Texas.
Leila: Yes, in Texas, as I
always say, in case my blonde hair doesn't give me away. I look like the least Texan person in the world. But yes, I was born and raised there for the first 18 years of my life.
Mikenzie: Amazing. Can you talk a little bit about that mix of cultures from the Iranian background living in America, in Texas specifically, which has its [00:03:00] own unique culture, and how that influenced your views when you were young on both career and family and motherhood.
Leila: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess just going back to my parents, 'cause I think it's relevant for this discussion. So they are both Iranian, both grew up in Iran, and were educated in Iran. And then the revolution, happened in the late seventies in 1979. And, you know, my family basically went wherever they could go.
so fled the country and, went to wherever they could find refuge, essentially. thinking it would probably be just a few years and then everything in the country would calm down and they would all move back and, you know, yet it's been now over 40 years since then that they've been, they've been out.
But, they first came to the uk So my sister was born in 1979 and she was born here in London. and they were here for a few years and then my mother got pregnant with me and they thought, okay, well we'll go to Texas. My dad found a job there and I think they thought it would be a few years, and it ended up being many, many more [00:04:00] years than that.
but I say that because I think there wasn't a sort of premeditated view of building a full life somewhere else. It was really like, we'll go somewhere for a few years. And I think a lot of the Iranian diaspora and kind of that, that community was, was like that. So they were spread out, you know, in all these cities all over, all over the world.
And somehow I think over time kind of grasped onto finding one another kind of other members of the Persian or or Iranian community and forming these sort of little micro communities, whether it was in Houston where I grew up, or in LA or in London or where, wherever, people found themselves.
They sort of looked for that sense of community So. Even though I grew up in Texas, which, is certainly very distinct in many ways from, from the Persian culture and the Iranian culture.
I also really feel like I was raised in that microcosm, like within a community of, of Iranian family and friends, that I spent much of my childhood with. And I'd say what that gave me, is a combination [00:05:00] of the culture, but also I think was the result of, this trauma that had happened to them where they had, lives and businesses and livelihoods and, a structure around them that suddenly from one day to the next sort of collapsed around them and they had to rebuild completely from scratch.
So that classic, you know, immigrant mindset around making sure that, your studies and your academics, your education was incredibly important. Like hard work was incredibly important. you know, performance, whether it was in sports or in school was incredibly important.
So everything was like. A ticket, you know, you were sort of working to get your ticket into the next phase, whether it was into the right university that would get you into the right job, that would get you sort of on the right path. but that was very, very much instilled and sort of drilled in in my sister and I from a very young age.
and then I'd say the other thing that played a very big role from my own family and my own upbringing perspective with regards to how I thought about building my own family over time, was that my parents went through [00:06:00] a divorce when, I was about eight years old and then quite a challenging sort of custody fight over the kids, a few years after that.
So my mother decided to go back and complete her education, both her university education 'cause she dropped out to marry my dad, but also her higher education. And she'd gotten a fellowship to, to Harvard, to do her master's in PhD and wanted to move to Boston with my sister and I to, to pursue that.
And, you know, that resulted in a, just like a very painful, battle essentially between my mother and father of wanting to keep the children in Houston where my sister and I were, versus move to Boston. And to make a very long story short, because it was, you know, it has a lot of nuance to, to that experience and I feel like a whole podcast could be done just on that experience and, and all the learnings that I've had from that.
But it ended up that my sister, my older sister who's three years older than me, moved to Boston with my mother and I stayed in Houston with my father. And so from the age [00:07:00] of about 12 years old, I was raised by my dad. and I would travel to Boston once a month and I would spend a weekend with my sister and mom and my sister would travel once a month to Texas to spend a weekend with me and my dad.
So I saw her every other weekend and I saw my mom one weekend a month. And even though I think that was a really hard period for us as a family, I also think it really. Solidified like, you know, the, the intense bond I guess that we have as a family as well and as kind of individuals, because I just saw it with all my friends and I even see it to some extent with my children now, is that there just is such a taking for granted and the familial home.
You know, you go to school, you come home, like you sit around the dinner table, you know, you go to your room and you do your homework and then you just wake up and you rinse, repeat and you don't really think about how precious that time is. And I think from quite a young age, it was clear to me that like I had one weekend a month with my mom and I had one weekend a month with my mother and my sister.
And those were really, really precious moments that we had together. [00:08:00] and similarly I think with my sister and my dad. And it just, that concept of family being this foundational layer on top of which everything is built, was, was made very clear to me, I think from a very young age. And yeah, it was a, a painful period of our lives.
But again, I think, you know, so much of suffering, I guess makes us who we are. later on in life and, most of the hardest things in our lives are the things that we ended up being most grateful for. So I think certainly for me it was,always something that shaped my view of, of family and connection.
And I would say probably my mother, my father and my sister are outside of my husband and children like the closest people to me in the world. And, people I have a very, very close relationship with today.
Mikenzie: I ask because I do think so much of when we are young and our parents' relationships and where they come from has such a big influence about how we project out our lives. Whether that ends up being true or not, my parents are also divorced, had a very big impact on how I see these things as well.
And actually , like quite different from how my [00:09:00] siblings see these things. and then the decisions that we've made since. So that is a very, very interesting and very unique background. and I guess from that, one thing that stands out from getting to know you a bit and just looking at your, you know, your resume is you're incredibly driven, incredibly accomplished.
I mean, you know, Yale undergrad, Harvard Business School, starting your own business, starting your own fund, where do you think that drive comes from? Is it from your parents? Is it like an internal drive? Is it some greater impact driving you?
Leila: Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. it's one that I think about a lot now because I think actually as you get older and you have more capacity to like, reflect and see the entirety of yourself, you can kind of try and separate out, you know, what you're doing for what you're running from versus what you're running towards kind of thing.
What, what's more. Authentic, what you wanna be intentional about going forward instead of being so reactionary to [00:10:00] things. So I've been trying to think through the drive piece and think like, is that something that is really innate to me and is a part of me and I want to hold onto it because that's a big piece of who I am.
Or actually, was it like a coping mechanism essentially that was sort of, that is, that is masked in this thing that we as a society, like, you know, put praise and reward on, which is being really ambitious and driven and, trying to build, um, enterprise value, for lack of a better term. and I think the reality is it's like it is a bit of both.
I do think as all this stuff was happening in my family life from basically the age of eight years old, from like sort of the divorce through to the custody fight and, and the aftermath, I think my academics and frankly my sports 'cause I was a competitive tennis player and like both of those things for me were real outlets where
I felt more of a locus of control. so there was so much in my family life that I felt was really out of my control, and there were these things happening that had a huge impact , that I didn't have the capability to shape or [00:11:00] effect. And so actually this place where inputs and outputs were so correlated, like almost perfectly correlated, where I could just study incredibly hard for something and then I could get like the a plus or I could train incredibly hard for the tournament and then I could win the tournament.
And those things you could see causality, was just so empowering. And I thought actually it's that sense of control somewhere that I think really appealed to me. and then you just kind of get on this. Yeah. I think you get on a, a bit of a, a treadmill, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but I mean, you're very much, I think shaped by your environment.
And so if you're lucky enough to go into one of these schools and kind of everyone around you is, you know, actually. Reaching for something that's very ambitious in terms of what they do next. And so you follow that and then you end up in these, you know, experiences, whether it's in investment banking or in consulting.
When I was graduating, that's what all the top people from the class wanted to do. And you just kind of like follow the next rung in the ladder. And [00:12:00] I think it took me quite a while actually, just like sort of take a step back and say, well, how much of that is me? Like how much of that is something that I wanna do versus the should of, well this is the most impressive thing to do, or this is what all the most impressive people that I know are doing.
so yeah, I think it's a bit of both. And I've definitely found my way now with Kindred, which is our venture fund, to try and manifest values into what we're doing that are really important to me. Like they're important to me on a very deeply meaningful level outside of the success of the performance of the fund.
And so there's just much more of a why I think in what we're doing and not just a what, but it, it certainly took me a while, I think to, to get there.
Mikenzie: at that time did you feel like you had a vision for your life when you were younger? Both I guess in terms of what career milestones you wanted to hit, but also did you always know you wanted to be a mother and you know, like think about what your family structure would look like.
I know you spoke a little bit about like the importance of family as the foundation, but [00:13:00] did you think about that as you were planning your life or you were like, actually I work hard and these amazing opportunities come to me, and then we'll also see how family fits in.
Leila: I think it was something I, I just always really, really wanted and, even going back as far as I can remember. Like, when I first learned how to ride my bicycle, through the streets in Houston, through our kind of suburban neighborhood, the, the imaginative play or the game that I was playing was pretending that my bicycle was like a big suburban van.
Like all the moms in Houston were driving their kids around in and pretending that I was dropping my kids off at school. And I would go into the driveway and be like, bye Heather, have a great day at school. You know, I really would pretend, and maybe a lot of young people do this where they kind of,play mom and they have dolls and babies but it, I think it was just always something that I saw in my future and something that I wanted to do.
and I guess the, the journey actually into parenthood for me was in some ways I think, like not a very thoughtful one. I mean, maybe the, the negative way of framing it is that I [00:14:00] wasn't thinking about it very much. I wasn't thinking about the how, huge of a change this would be in my life and what, the magnitude of that decision.
Someone at some point says something to me about like one way doors and two way doors. And how basically like every decision that we make in, our life, barring a few, are two way door decisions. so you can take that job and then you can leave that job or you can even marry that person and then you can divorce that person.
You know, like it's so many of the things that we think are permanent, or not permanent, but one of the very few things that's a one-way door is having a child. And so I think it does require, a tremendous amount of thought, but on the flip side, I just wasn't even thinking about the magnitude of it.
I think it just came very, like organically and naturally for me. it was like breathing, you know, it's like that famous fish swimming in water saying, what's water? It's like, well, of course that's something that I want and that we would wanna do and it's gonna be a part of our lives.
so yeah, I think there, there are the flip sides, but. I guess so much of my life up until the point where I had [00:15:00] kids, and maybe up until the point where I had my second or third kid was characterized by every year of my life taking on more than I had done the year before. so growing, like growing in capabilities, growing in skills, growing in responsibilities, growing in independence, growing like just every year from as far back as I can remember.
and sometimes there were those reviews that you'd get at work or there were those things that you would hear people saying about you, which were like, you know, we're worried that she's taking on too much, or worried about burnout or worried whatever it was that I sort of used to wear as a bit of a badge of honor in saying, well, like you think that most people probably wouldn't be able to juggle this many plates or to do this many things, but I can.
And it became such a big part of my identity, I think for myself. That almost like I was out to prove people wrong and that I could do all those things. and so I think as it pertained to building a business and building a family at the same time, which is what ended up [00:16:00] happening with, you know, having my first child and, and then my second and third while we've been building, kindred, is that I think it was the first experience that I've ever had where there was just a tipping point.
Like there was a point where it was just too much. and I had, you know, every year taken on more and more and defied the odds. but at some point, you know, you're Icarus and you probably do fly too close to the sun, but up until that point, all you know is that everyone says I can't do it, but I've proven that I can.
So I think it was certainly different for me than other things that I've done in my life.
Mikenzie: yeah. And we're gonna put a
a pin in that and come back to it later. but let's start about that time where you decided to start Kindred. and. Maybe just starting with a little bit about Kindred Capital and, and what your vision for it was, what you saw the gap in the venture capital market was, and why you decided to start it at that period of time in your life.
Leila: Sure. So my husband and I met when I was in business school, so I was on the [00:17:00] east coast in the US and then we had both together, moved out to San Francisco, and both joined the sort of entrepreneurial ecosystem in, in San Francisco. both of us kind of co-founding or, or starting very early stage ventures at the time.
And for my own company, had, you know, been a part of raising a number of, venture capital rounds and so it was really like the customer of venture capital and had been the customer of venture capital.
and then when my husband got relocated to London for work in 2014, and I tried the impossible commute between London and Silicon Valley for nine months or so, which is, yeah, I would not recommend to anyone. I, I honestly just thought I wanted to start another business. Like I really wanted to, stay on the operating side and found something and, and, you know, go on that journey again, which had been so enjoyable and, just full of such richness of, of learning and experience.
So I, met as many entrepreneurs in this ecosystem as I could, honestly, looking for who was going to be my next co-founder. And I think through that experience I witnessed [00:18:00] firsthand how underserved the entrepreneurial customer was in Europe. Relative to what I had experienced as the customer of venture capital in the Bay Area.
So that was like the real aha moment for me. Or like, the shock was I clearly knew that the Silicon Valley ecosystem was more established and it had been around for much longer. And so it was gonna be more mature in nature. But I, I didn't think it was gonna be so stark in terms of the differences. And that ended up, you know, quite organically, again, becoming like, the problem that I most cared about solving was to create a firm that I would've wanted to take money from if I was, you know, starting a new venture in, in Europe with a co-founder.
And as, when you have the opportunity to found anything, you know, you have this really unique ability to shape the world around you, in the kind of the version of the world that you wanna live in. and that like is everything from the smallest things like. You know, what office space do we work in and what does it look and feel like?
And, and what are our values that we operate with and who do we work with and who are my partners [00:19:00] and who are the people that we sell to and who are the people that we partner with on the customer side?
So just absolutely everything, I think, becomes your own creation that's manifest. And one of the things that we did differently at Kindred and is the reason why we called the firm Kindred, is we share the profit of the firm with every founder that we invest in out of every fund.
So typically in a venture fund,you might invest in 30 companies, and the power law is very real in venture capital, which means probably like one company, maybe two, you know, they are huge success stories and they make up all the returns of your fund. And then the other kind of 28 companies, either don't make it or are, okay, but, you know, good, not great outcomes.
And at the end of the day, those, 28 other teams have still spent five or 10 years of their life, trying to build something and put their blood, sweat, and tears into something and taken a huge risk. So I guess what we tried to do with Kindred is to say, how do we better align ourselves with those founders where we get the benefit of a portfolio, right?
Being VCs. And so if we only need one company to win really big, [00:20:00] but how do we actually bring everyone we invest in, into that community so they all have a vested interest in each other's to success? And if one person wins, everyone wins. and it's kind of like, how do you encourage or tilt people in the direction of taking a swing?
Because those are the people that ultimately change the world. And yes, the, success rates are low, but if you enable more and more people to do that, I think, there will be fantastic ripple effects from it. So, that's what we set up and I think the mission statement was totilt the industry in the direction of generosity, but, but really just
to create a more generous version of venture capital.
Mikenzie: I love it. I'm excited to see it spread across the VC industry.
Leila: Here's
hoping,
Mikenzie: And so, I think around two weeks into you guys deciding to start Kindred and hitting the ground running to raise your first fund, you found out you were pregnant with your first Roya. can you talk a little bit about that experience?
Were you planning to start trying for a kid at that time, or was it a complete surprise and did [00:21:00] it impact your plans for fundraising at all?
Leila: Yeah, I, I mean we had been trying for a bit. and so I think it was like there was an openness to it, but there wasn't like a sense of urgency to it. and we got really lucky in that we got pregnant like reasonably early on into that journey. And when it's your first, you just have absolutely no idea.
And they say on, average it takes about a year. So I think for a lot of people, that means it takes, a couple of years and we were like, yeah, at some point in the next couple of years, that would be great. but I think going back to my, previous point about. Almost treating it, casually, you know, almost like, well, yeah, of course, I can do this.
And, like not thinking, I guess, about maybe the, the changes that it would bring to our lives in great detail, but just knowing and backing ourselves that we would figure it out and it was gonna be this really wonderful additive thing to our, lives. I remember though being, you know, heavily pregnant while we were fundraising for that first fund, and it was my first experience and I've had the experience a number of times since then.
but it was my first [00:22:00] experience being like feeling truly that I was being treated differently, as a woman in business. so I remember at some point Cheryl Sandberg came on campus when I was in business school. And she was giving a talk to women in business. And so the title of it was Women in Business.
And I remember being really annoyed because I was like, well, I don't wanna go to something that's called Women in Business. I'm just a person in business. Andlike all these men would benefit fromhearing about her leadership and this should be about people in business and she just happens to be a woman.
So it was always, something that I felt, I didn't wanna be treated differently. I didn't think that I was treated differently. I didn't feel any glass ceiling in any of the roles that I'd done before. I, I just felt, that whole concept didn't resonate with me. That, that there was a difference or that I would be treated differently.
And then as soon as I was pregnant, both like the questions that I was getting and the fundraising processes about like how I was thinking about my maternity leave and how was I gonna juggle it and what was I gonna do? And I remember thinking that like, there's tons of men who are fundraising for their firm and [00:23:00] you know, for all the LP knows their wife is pregnant and they're not asking him like how he's gonna think about it or how he's gonna juggle it
and I actually felt that a lot of the female LPs, who will go nameless, but there were some women LPs who I spoke to who you would almost think would have like more empathy towards it or be more sensitive towards it. but actually were the hardest, would spend 45 minutes of an hour long pitch, like talking to me about how I was gonna manage, and just like projecting, I guess their own nervousness for what it was gonna mean for me taking my eye off the ball.
so that was kind of the first experience of it. But we got the fund raised, and then, I had Roya and I had her in February of 2016, so she's nine years old now. and I guess like anytime you have a child, it is a life-changing experience. and she was a life-changing experience for sure, for us, you know, in so many ways.
but she was also born with, with a whole host of, medical challenges, which were completely unforeseen. And so there was a whole journey [00:24:00] that we went on there with her as well, which I think, as I look back and as I talk now to, other women who are founders or operators or VCs or whoever they are, and they are talking to me about how they're pregnant and they're kind of anticipating how they're gonna manage things on the other side, and they have these perfectly drawn plans around like, this is my maternity leave plan and this is what I'm gonna do and this is how I'm gonna do it.
And I'm always just like, you just don't know what you're gonna be dealt. and I mean that in a, a really positive way. Like, it's just like a magical experience. it will change you and you know, there's no ability to prepare for what it's going to do to you and for you.
So just kind of maintain as much flexibility, like don't promise the world. You know, if people are giving you six months, like take six months and if you wanna come back after three, come back after three, but. I, I feel like given that I was a co-founder and a partner in the firm, I just never felt like that was something that I could take for myself.
which I think is a mistake by the way, in, in retrospect. So, sort of wore it a little bit, probably [00:25:00] as a, as a badge, which as think is wrong now in, in hindsight in many ways, but of, you know, not taking maternity leave or taking, you know, four weeks or six weeks of maternity leave and then powering through.
in hindsight, I think as an analogy back to my sort of family upbringing, in a way it was also like work was an outlet for me, and it was a coping mechanism for me when there was so much that was challenging at home, um, because of her medical condition and because of her care. Like work gave me a place where, again, inputs and outputs were more correlated than they were at home.
I wouldn't say that they're perfectly correlated at work. You know, the more senior I guess you get in anything that you do, the less you can perfectly. relate the inputs and outputs. But yeah, it was a place that I would, you know, wear my grownup adult clothes, that didn't have spit up all over them and like go into an office with other adults and, talk about things that were intellectual and interesting and stimulating.
and I think that duality of having that as an outlet and then coming back and caring for my child that [00:26:00] needed a lot of medical attention and a lot of care, I think I sort of needed to have both and would've crushed under the weight of doing too much of one, but also too much of the other as well.
Mikenzie: Yeah. 'cause that energy kinda has to go somewhere, right? So I think almost having the work outlet in a way is like a place to put that energy. And then if you don't have that, it's like, do you put it all on the family or the kid? And know that it comes with a whole host of other challenges. So I'm sure in a way, actually maybe work was kind of a helpful outlet it sounds like.
Leila: It really was. It really was. And I think it continues to be in many ways. But I, I, it's interesting you ask about my upbringing and my childhood and all of that, because I do think so much of this stuff is nature. Obviously some of it is nurture. But, you know, I have a sister and my sister and I are incredibly different, on this front in terms of how, kind of career [00:27:00] ambitious we are.
I think my sister is incredibly ambitious, but she's very ambitious for like a full, rich family life that in many ways she didn't have when she was growing up because of our family circumstance. And she is, right now not working and she's a stay at home mom. Um, and it comes through her, I would say, as this.
Unbelievable. Like very impassioned, full of joyfulness, full of wanting to do that as opposed to, so it's like very authentic to her as opposed to something that you do out of sacrifice, right? Like I feel like I should be there for my fam for my kids, or I should do all the pickups because either I didn't have the pickups or because I did have the pickups and like therefore I need to recreate that for my, for my kids.
So I think my learning has been like actually self-awareness and self-knowledge is probablythe place to start. That's the greatest gift I think you could give to yourself and then pass on to your family members because [00:28:00] you will be the best version of yourself when you are doing things in a way that they give you energy, in a way that they kind of nourish you and feed you.
And if I was doing the work thing out of should, like a pure should, like I started this firm, I can't let them down like I have to be there, but really I just wanna be with my kid all the time. I think I would be a horrible version of both of those roles. And equally, if I was my sister who is a stay at home mom, I, I mean, it's been Easter break and I had Friday off and Monday off for Easter, Friday and Monday and spent like five straight days with my children.
And it was both like glorious and wonderful. And I am so thrilled to be on this call with you and back at work today and then be like a great version of myself tonight with them because I think just being a person in the world and being stimulated in that way and yeah, it, it kind of gives me the energy that then I can feed back to them.
So I think it just needs to start with, yeah, knowing yourself and then doing the thing that more authentically makes you alive. And I think too often I [00:29:00] was probably as maybe you are to some degree as you have these podcast discussions as well, looking for some sort of like answer or some value hierarchy or some like, this is better than that is.
and actually I think my pendulum has shifted all, I mean, my pendulum started with like, I only wanna hang out with people that are building the most extraordinary things in the world. And, that is what great looks like and it takes, you know, sacrifice. But like, that's, that's fantastic.
And people that are coasting or people that have a lifestyle business or people that are stay at home moms or whatever, they're just like, not my crew. They're not my people. And there was like a value judgment I think that I put probably on like one category versus the other.
And then it went all the way, kind of full circle where when you go through all this, you know, introspection and soul searching, where it was like, as they say, you move from your resume values to your eulogy values, over time. And you're like, none of this matters. Like, if Kindra is like a 10 x fund or a 50 x fund like, it just doesn't matter at the end of the day.
And I, I don't want people to stand up at my eulogy [00:30:00] and talk about like the number of billion dollar companies that I backed, but. I do think that the meaning in life comes from the value of your relationships and how deep those are and how present you are for those people. And so then my pendulum was like, none of this stuff with, you know, ambition and companies and capitalism, none of that matters.
And it's all about, relationships and my sisters there for our parents and for her children and for me. And that's a virtuous life. And now it's like, well, you just have to know yourself. Like you just have to know what feeds you. And then that will be your ability to feed others.
Mikenzie: I love that. I think that's so true. It's like you only have so much energy and the wayyour energy is fed, like the way you feed off your energy is by doing the things you love rather than doing the things you think you should be doing. And so it's almost like less about like, what's everything on my plate?
And more like, are these the right things on my plate
for me to have the energy to do them all?
Leila: So good, so good. I was joking with a friend who said that for [00:31:00] so long we've been shoulding all over ourselves, which I thought was a really wonderful way of saying it because the should, I think also maybe even like the female thing, I think as like being a good girl is very much about, you know, you should do this and you should show up that way and you should.
So I think it, it takes, yeah, a real evolution to move away from the shoulds and to actually know what you want again, which is something that I think we dampen very much in our culture. Like, you almost don't hear your own voice anymore because you're so focused on like, what I should do for others and, you know, what I should eat to look a certain way and how I should behave and how I shouldn't behave and almost every decision from the micro up has a should associated with it and it sort of takes us away from our.
Our inner most knowledge of ourselves and what we really want. And so I think, yeah, finding your way back to that, either before or as you have children, is like one of the, I know this is not an advice giving podcast, but it was, would be advice that I would give to my former [00:32:00] self is like, get there faster because, you know, that will enable you to do so much more for others.
Mikenzie: you said you took maybe a few weeks maternity leave, but very minimal, at least with Roya, your first, do you feel like that was a should or was it like, actually, I really wanna get back to work. I also am building this other baby, and I think for me, this is the best thing to do.
Leila: I think it was, um, I think it was a bit of both. Like it was really an important outlet, like I said, and I really, I care and I cared about what I was building and so I really wanted to contribute to it and it was something that I wanted to remain very involved with. On the other hand, I think, like I said, that continuum or that pendulum from, like the people that I respect and admire are people who have done extraordinary things out there in the world.
And they have built great companies, and they have these great success stories. I still think that was my heuristic nine years ago. you know, my pendulum hadn't swung all the way back to like, only relationships matter and [00:33:00] presence matters. And then somewhere to the middle where it's like, actually both things are really important.
So yeah, I think that that was the should of just, you know, I am someone who should play that role and who should be in the firm and who should be pushing the baton forward and should be seen as someone who's, you know, the last person who leaves the office. It's still hard for me. I have been building this firm for 10 years and I still feel
Like if I leave the office before anyone in the organization, like no matter what level they are in the organization, I still feel a sense of, um, yeah, like sort of, I'm not, I'm not pulling my weight, you know, it's so deeply ingrained in me and you have to learn over time. I think that also as a leader, stuff like FaceTime and not taking any maternity leave and, you know, being the one who's like burning the midnight oil all the time, that isn't necessarily the best way to inspire and motivate like other people in an organization.
so I just think I had to go through that. I had to realize that firsthand that both, that's not something that [00:34:00] I feel like I have capacity for anymore. Certainly not with three kids. I just can't be the last person in the office every night. and also, I don't even know if that is like the most aspirational way to be thoughtful and to work smarter and not just harder.
Mikenzie: going back to when Roya was born, do you feel comfortable opening a little bit about her condition and that experience of when she was first born and trying to get a diagnose and figure out what was going on and like your support system, andhow you all coped with that?
Leila: Yeah. Yeah. I mean the, the phrase that I come back to quite a lot is the concept of reproduction, which I read this in a book. actually it's in the preface of this incredible book that's written by a guy named Andrew Solomon called Far From the Tree, which is all about children who present differently than their parents, and is.
probably the most beautiful book that I have ever read. And in the preface, he talks about this word reproduction. And he says, you know, it's wrong. Like, we shouldn't be [00:35:00] using that word. we're not reproducing ourselves. We're producing something completely new. we should call it production and whether we think we're doing it or not, subconsciously.
And that's why he uses the semantics. You know, the word itself, we are projecting ourselves and our experience of the world and what gave us meaning and what gave us confidence and what gave us joy onto our children. And so I think the scariest part for me of having a child like Roya, who was diagnosed with a very rare genetic condition, she was diagnosed at about six months old.
and neither my husband or I are carriers of this condition. So it's, you know, you create new life, just like Andrew Solomon said, like We didn't reproduce, we just produced and we got this like magical being. And she, has, you know, a misspelling as it, uh, as it turns out, a misspelling in one of her genes.
we have about 20,000 genes and in one of them there's a single letter that, you know, [00:36:00] should have been a t and is a C. and that has all sorts of implications on who she is and how she is. And so I think the scariest part for me, having a child who presented so differently than what I had expected she would.
and also my own experience of what it was to grow up as like a neurotypical child and also like a kind of a high achieving, child. And someone who, as I said back to the beginning of our conversation, like in my household, you know, an A was not. Different than a B, it was better than a B, you know, and like Harvard wasn't like a different school than Boston College.
It was like a better school than Boston. It was just like, there was a hierarchy and something was good and something was not as good. and so having a child that clearly because of her condition, like she will have a very different cognitive and intellectual path than what I had, was so scary because that was where I felt I had [00:37:00] derived like all my sense of meaning, all my friendships, all my relationships, all my capacity.
ultimately, I think that that journey of learning about oneself through this experience, which is one of the greatest gifts she's given me and she's given me a lot, was that I was essentially attributing my, achievements with my ability to be loved. and so I, I think that was what was so scary is like, well, if she can't have any of those achievements, like.
Can she be loved and can she have a meaningful life and can she have a purposeful life? and I think when you become a parent, I mean, there's this indescribable bond and love, that you have for your child, which, you know, is like something I had never experienced before. And so that immediate answer to that question of, okay, well she's not gonna be able to achieve in the classical sense, she won't be able to perform for me in the classical sense, but does that mean that she can't be loved?
I mean, that was like such an anathema, it was like, I, I loved her with every ounce of [00:38:00] my being with every cell in my body. It was like the connection I had to her with her was like nothing I had ever experienced with anyone before. And so then that helped me with my own kind of healing, if you will, my own journey of saying, okay, well then, you know, I should be capable of being loved without my achievements as well.
So. Yeah, it's been a journey. It's been like a nine year journey, so far. And I think she's taught me so much more in those nine years than I have taught her for sure. and it's been like an unlearning probably, and a rewiring of my own brain of like, these are the things that are important in life and, you know, letting go of some of the things that I thought were important, but actually play much less of a, of a role.
And yeah, she's in a school, a mainstream school at the moment, although she has a full-time aide. She has they call it a learning support assistant, so a one-to-one, aide. And she has now two younger siblings, which she didn't have at the time, which I think has also been amazing for her development.
And, and like, we're a [00:39:00] little, we're a team. We're like a little gang. And, we oftentimes do the really like, cheesy thing of all putting our hand, in the center and putting our hands on top of each other and doing a little Family hurrah. But it, it does really feel like that we're all there to, you know, support one another.
And like, it's not just about supporting Roya, like she supports us in many ways as well. And as I said, has helped us, has helped me probably more than anyone, anyone that I've, I've ever met in my life before.
Mikenzie: that's really beautiful. so my niece, is nuerodivergent and speaking to my sister about it, it's very similar. She says they're her greatest spiritual teachers. Her kids, but especially her oldest It just taught her actually criticism she had on herself, that she was kind of seeing come up in her daughter and.
She'sso grateful. She's like, she's taught me more In my life that I could even ever give to her. And I feel like for you it's this beautiful, kind of teaching for you, but also she's so lucky to have such a capable and like attentive parent like you, who is now on the board [00:40:00] of foundations around this condition and has done so much to help the cause for her and for other people.
So it's like,
Leila: Yeah, that's kind of you to
Mikenzie: which is really beautiful. Yeah.
Leila: No, that's really kind of you to say. there's a guy named Chip Conley if you've ever come across him. He's written a whole
bunch of books and he was a CEO of a company. He's wonderful. We got to know him a bit when we were living in San Francisco. And, there's so much of what he says that really resonates with me, but the journey to parenthood, but also just the journey of getting older.
I think he talks about the operating system of the first half of your life is the ego, and then the operating system of the second half of your life is the soul.
And I feel like that really resonates as well from the standpoint of whenyou're responsible for yourself, but you're not really responsible for very much else.
it is so much about, you know, about you, whether you wanna admit it or not, and you know your career and you know, your progression and your promotion and your happiness and all that. And then, you get married and it's a little bit about maybe one other person, and then you have a [00:41:00] child and it, it really is then about the other.
I think it's about that individual and that kind of evolution of saying, well, this isn't about the ego, actually. This is about, what am I on this earth to do and how can I support and help, both in my case, Roya, but also I think she's just opened us up to the rare disease community in a way in which it plays such a big role in my life now.
And I think these are. People I never otherwise would've had the opportunity to meet and partner with and try and find ways of turning something that you're given into Yeah. A real, a gift and ability to, to give back and to learn. So, yeah, I think that evolution from the ego to the soul is, is something that she's given me for sure.
Mikenzie: I love that. And what support do you and your husband have around taking care of the kids? You both have very demanding jobs. so now I guess they're older, so they're all in school, but especially when they were younger. How did you guys make that work With working very demanding jobs, having one kid who has additional needs [00:42:00] and then two other kids as well along the way.
Leila: Yeah. I think the biggest learning there is, like, I think raising kids or having children, is not similar to almost anything else where you can, drive a real sense of efficiency. There's like an efficient frontier in almost everything that you do. Where I think I was always like pushing the boundaries of what was possible.
It's sort of like you look at your calendar and you're like, what can I fit in into this calendar? Well, yeah, I could just push it right to the edge or like I have a flight that I need to catch at like 8:00 PM and I could just take this meeting that ends in six and then at six I'm sure there won't be that much traffic to get to JFK.
like things were like right up to the margin 'cause I just wanted to maximize everything and I would feel so valiant when I was like the last person on that plane. 'cause there was just absolutely no wasted time. And I like used all the time and all those things. And I think becoming a parent and trying to apply that to childcare is like, please don't do that.
Which is essentially what I did at the beginning, which was [00:43:00] like, well I think like on weekends, you know, that's really the time that we wanna be with the kids. So we shouldn't have anyone helping on weekends 'cause it should just be about us with them. And then I probably only need someone from like.
Seven in the morning until eight 30 when this one goes to nursery and then maybe back in the afternoon. And I tried that at the beginning. And I think the reality is like these are human beings. Like these little children are not programmable machines and stuff will be unforeseen and stuff will happen and someone will be sick and like someone falls over and someone needs your help and you get a call from the school nurse and they need to be picked.
you need to basically build in buffer. And building in buffer was a incredibly foreign thing in my life up until about five years ago, because it felt like inefficiency and I just kind of couldn't deal with that sense of inefficiency. but, but now I feel like we have a real setup where, you have to build in the buffer and you also have to like, I mean, it's such a classic thing, but I guess put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can put it [00:44:00] on someone else.
Like we would get to the end of the week and be completely exhausted. And then have no help on a weekend. And with kids, like not all of it is like sitting around playing Uno, you know, like there's also like a ton of like cleaning and cooking and just admin and you know, they're fighting and you like it just divide and conquer.
so I think just having, yeah, having someone who helped us, as like an extra pair of hands, became something that enabled us to take an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning, be better versions of ourselves, like not spend all the time cleaning dishes in the kitchen and actually being with the kids, you know, all those little things that made a huge difference.
so now we have a full-time nanny, and she comes every morning and leaves every evening. And we also have someone who has lived with us for eight years now, who has literally become a part of our family and is incredible. I mean, Roya needed two, two people for her care all the time when she was younger.
So we sort of always needed to. double team. but now having this [00:45:00] extra almost family member who, is, is a little bit of that filler for us whenever we need it. Or if we wanna impromptu, kind of go out for dinner. heaven forbid, my husband and I for like a date night every now and then, um, you know, it's not something where you need to call in the babysitter two weeks in advance and so on.
we just have that at home. So I think now I feel like we're really well, yeah, we're really well taken care of. with the team that we have and it, it's something that's taken us a while to get to, but it certainly enables me to be who I wanna be at work, but also who I wanna be at home.
Mikenzie: That's great.going back to that point you said at the beginning where you can do a lot, you seem very efficient, but maybe has gotten a bit too much at times. did you ever have kind of like a breaking point or just a point where you're just like, I can't handle all of this. I need to take time for myself?
Leila: Yeah, um, it, it wasn't just having more kids and having more funds under management and therefore more responsibilities and so on. It was also just [00:46:00] like, I never adjusted the way in which I worked in a way, because going back to the conversation that we had before, like, I did think it was some badge of honor to be, you know, working until midnight every night.
Like, I did think that that was something that just showed dedication and commitment and all the rest of it. So I attributed a lot. I don't think I'm the smartest person. I wasn't the smartest person in my high school or in my, undergrad or in business school. But I always felt like I was one of the hardest working people.
And maybe that's something that, you know. Your greatest strength also dovetails is your greatest weakness type of thing. Or as Adam Grant says, A weakness is a strength overused, which I love that line. So I think my strength was like I have a lot of, kind of grit and tenacity and determination and I could just work very, very, very hard.
But I think when that became the only tool that I had, you know, brute forcing has like a shelf [00:47:00] life to it, I think. And what was really hard for me, I think was giving up in a sense, or even tweaking the thing that had worked so well for me for like the 30 years prior, which was just outworking the next person.
So I, I just knew that that worked and it had worked for me in the past. And even aside from having kids, by the way, I just feel like the evolution of becoming a more senior person in your career, in your life, you know, however you've, orchestrated it for yourself. It is actually the evolution of being the person who works the hardest to being the person who takes the kind of accumulated wisdom that you have gained through, you know, 20, 30, 40 years of experience and embedding that into a sort of judgment framework of decision making and time allocation and leadership basically.
so I think I, I was forced to make that shift because at some point you just can't, there's a limited number of hours in the day and you [00:48:00] just, you know, can't be the person who brute forces things when you're trying to juggle too many balls. So that was sort of my breaking point. But, but since that point, I feel like
It has forced me. And I think having children or having anything outside of work will force you to do this, to, you know, live by the, the kind of 80 20 rule as much as possible. Live by the rule of like, this absolutely has to be done by me. You know, this can't be done by someone else. I can't delegate this out.
This is super important. This is urgent. This is something that I need to work on now. And that sense of focus of I can't do everything. So what are the things that are gonna matter? And actually in venture, I mean, venture is the ultimate, like literally there are one or two things, every fund that matter.
we're paid for our judgment. At the end of the day. and I think the thing that becomes more commoditized is the brute force and the thing that actually has some premium on it, hopefully after like 10 or 20 years of pattern recognition in your career, is actually that accumulated wisdom that you need a sense of space and serenity and time to [00:49:00] make those decisions.
Well, so that, I mean, I'm still being completely honest, I think I'm still working on that, but it is, you know, heads and tails difference than, even a handful of years ago. So I think the trajectory is positive.
Mikenzie: Do you have, any mentors or support systems that you talk to to help kind of figure out all of these things, throughout your both career and motherhood journey?
Leila: Um, when, when Roya was diagnosed, I started seeing a counselor, and I saw him weekly and it was from seven 30 to eight 30 in the morning on a Wednesday, and I would basically just go and cry.
and I felt like I just needed that space that I could go and where I wasn't. 'cause if I was crying on the phone with my mother, or if I was crying with my husband, I always felt like I was, you know, putting some additional burden also on them, because they just cared about me a huge amount and they cared about Roya as well.
So I just, I needed like a third space, where I could go, where I could feel [00:50:00] held in that space, but, not someone who is a part of my family. So that was incredibly valuable for me. And I did that for, probably a good 18 to 24 months. and, and then over time we, I think we've pulled together like a real team, as it were.
so we have, you know, certainly for her care, there's like a number of different therapists. There's like a speech and language therapist and occupational therapist and a play therapist. And she's got lots of different interventions, but there's so much more than just someone for her. I feel like
They've kind of created this support system for us as a family. Um, we had to get some help on figuring out how to talk to our other kids about Roya's additional needs. 'cause they're actually, in some ways more aware of her differences than even she is of herself right now. And so they have a lot of questions and how do we wanna talk about that?
And, and so we, spoke to a family therapist or a systems therapist for that. So I, I feel like we've got lots of places actually, where we can seek counsel and support. [00:51:00] And it's been interesting because, my husband, I think he's just, he's a more private person than I am in general. He's definitely more introverted.
and I think the experience for me of having Roya and then any of like the breakthroughs or the progress or the connections or the feeling of connectivity or whatever it was that was positive that came from, the root of it or the stem of it was sharing. Was like sharing something that was really personal to us and having that open up a conversation with someone, or an insight or a connection or something that they gave back to us.
And the most, remarkable connections have come from those kinds of conversations. So I feel like she's also opened us up far more. You know, my husband, who I think would've been very private before, I think is now much more prone to speaking openly about things because we do form a part of each other's, support networks and communities.
I think people fundamentally wanna help other people. and I think they wanna help other people who, you know, express a [00:52:00] sense of real vulnerability that is, you know, felt. And because we all have it, you know, everyone has hardship and suffering and everyone has things going on in their life.
So yeah, I think we have now, um, depending on what the issue is, we have a number of people that we can go to and friends and family for sure that have been. You know, just such, ground truths for us in, in moments of anxiety and pain.
Mikenzie: Oh that's so good. And I agree. I think, I've always been a very open person. I've had a hard time like trying to put on the very professional, private hat of mind, but it's worked in a lot of ways. And I'm curious now, 'cause you're talking about your experience of fundraising, your first fund and a lot of people were kind of you on how are you gonna maternity and you had to take this very kind of stoic stance.
Do you think that that is still the case with certain types of people, like if you're working with LPs or like trying to fundraise or you know, you're an entrepreneur, trying to fundraise that women do still have to have a little bit of that [00:53:00] protection just 'cause of some of the biases in the industry?
Or do you actually see that maybe there's some more space and some advantages to being open about some of these things?
Leila: Yeah, I mean, going back to a point that we made earlier, I feel like you are going to do you very well in the world. Like you are going to do it better than anyone else can do it, and you are going to play someone else like worse than that person would play themselves type of thing. I don't know if that made sense when I said it out loud, but it makes a lot of sense in my head where I would really try and tap into the most.
the most authentic way of showing up in work and in life. And I think for a short period of time, you could probably sustain again, some should, some, like, I should act stoic or I should share this, but I, I think it isn't going to be very natural and it isn't going to be able to be sustained for a very long period of time.
I feel like those are the people that end up like churning out of the [00:54:00] market is that they've pretended or they have acted for too long and that just has a cost to it. Like the fuel doesn't burn very clean, I think in those settings. So
I think there isn't any right or wrong, but I think it does have to come from a place where that's how you want to show up.
because these are such long journeys that I think, again,you can only act or pretend for so long. And I think just being yourself is probably the best way of doing it.
Mikenzie: Yeah, and I guess for like your case, it's like you'll find the right LPs that are supportive of your journey and how you're
Leila: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. I think there's such a fear of, you know, saying something that then people won't respond well to. And then what will the impact of that be as opposed to seeing that also as an opportunity, like seeing that also as a positive selection bias out or in, you know, especially if you found something, I mean, the whole point of it is that, like I said before, you're like building the version of the world you wanna live in.
Like, you want that to be aligned. And the word integrity, which is the most [00:55:00] overused word on like any company's values or firm's values in the world, it's become so meaningless. But it comes from this concept of being integrated, where you're inside self is integrated with your outside self.
Like it's not that you are, you know, saying something outside and feeling something else within. So I think. It has such integrity. If you are saying, this is what we do, this is how we wanna do it, this is who we wanna do it with. If people wanna get on that journey, that's great. And if they don't, that also is information that's helpful.
Mikenzie: Yeah. I remember when I was dating, my brother said to me, you have to remember, this is a two-way interview, Mackenzie.
Leila: Such good advice.
Mikenzie: And now I think about that all the time. Like even for jobs and things like that.
This is
a two way interview.
Leila: point. It's a great point. Yeah. I think like anything, like these concept of there's no such thing as one way liberation. it is always two way liberation. Always. Like if something isn't working for whatever reason, calling that out, even if it's just one party that calls that out, it is liberating that other person for [00:56:00] being in an environment where they're not being as successful as they could be in another environment.
So yeah, I do think this kind of two-way stream, this two-way interview or this two-way liberation as it always is, so. Yeah, I think put out the most true, authentic version of who you are and how you want to live your life and build your career. And then those who want to come on board on that journey will, and those who won't, won't and shouldn't.
And again, there's no value hierarchy. that's the biggest thing that I think I've learned. It's not that like, your way is better and their way is worse. It's just like, if we were all really honest about what we wanted to do, I think things would be so much more efficient because it would be, yeah.
It, it would just, everyone would be on the journey that they wanna be on.
Mikenzie: Yeah. Totally love it. Now I just wanna end. On a quick fire round of questions if that's good for you. So just quick back and forth. my first question is, how have your children helped you be a better [00:57:00] vc?
Leila: I think they've helped me say no a lot more and a lot
faster. I actually think the entrepreneurial experience is you have so much uncertainty in what you're doing and you know, what you're building and how it's gonna go. And that actually, like gaining certainty anywhere is valuable, is helpful.
So one example is like, I used to have a meeting with a founder and even if I knew that I wasn't gonna move forward with that company and we weren't gonna, you know, go to the next stages, I felt like it was the right thing to do to first of all take like a 45 minute or an hour long meeting and then to tell 'em we were gonna think about it and then to write a really thoughtful email the next day saying we discussed it and here are like the 10 things.
And that like takes an enormous amount of time, but it also takes like 24 hours or more from that founder of thinking like, okay, well I wonder what the next steps are gonna be. And I spent all this time and. And now, if you know, you're 15 or 20 minutes in with a founder and you, you know, that you're not gonna move forward.
I think the kindest thing to do is to say, Hey, look, I think this one isn't gonna be for us, but like, here [00:58:00] are a couple of the things that I'd be thinking about. Or maybe here's an introduction that I can make and just be clear and give them their time back. And I think I've had to do that again out of just like time allocation and resource allocation.
But it ultimately has made me so much better. My NPS with customers has gone up not down, I think as a result of just being, being really clear.
Mikenzie: if you could enact one policy that either governments or schools should provide to help empower and support neurodivergent kids and their families, what would it be?
Leila: I would, mandate, inclusive schools basically. my daughter Roya, um, we put her in a, a state school because the state school was the most inclusive actually, so a sort of a public school, not a private school. because by definition they have to take whoever's in the catchment, right?
So it's, it's completely non-selective. And, if you take a cross section of society, there are gonna be people who are not all in the top 1% of, you know, academic achievements and so on. and so we put her [00:59:00] there because we kinda had to, it was the only place that would take her. And then over time we've grown to love the system and the school so much that we've moved my other two kids to the same school.
Because I think there's so much, I, I know Roya gets a lot out of the other students, in that school, but I also feel like they get a huge amount from her. Like they have to learn how to be patient and empathetic and collaborative and. Actually back to sort of the Adam Grant thing, 'cause I'm an enormous Adam Grant fan.
he did this whole study on first born kids and second born kids and they found statistically that the first born child tended to have,much higher academic achievement, um, go on to more academic and career success than the second kid. And so they did this study to figure out what was it like It couldn't be, it's not about nurture.
They have the same parents. It's not about nature 'cause it was so consistent across the first born. And they realized that the key thing was that the first born [01:00:00] kid oftentimes teaches the second born kid things. So we'll teach them like how to read or we'll teach them math or we'll teach them. And actually when you teach, it solidifies your learning of a subject so much and that, so I just feel like the other students in the class, I see how when they are in PE and they're running and one of them has to hold Roya's hand 'cause she can't run on her own.
Or someone who's sitting with her and helping her like phonetically sound out the words. Like those are things that build character and they build intellect and you know, they build skills. So yeah, I would force all schools to be non-selective and inclusive and try and represent a real diversity, um, on that side as well.
Mikenzie: Yeah. Well, it's great you found a school that works well for all of them.
Leila: Yeah, it's a wonderful school.
Mikenzie: Okay. And then the last one is, if you could go back and tell your pre Kidd self, one thing, what would it be?[01:01:00]
Leila: Oof. Gosh, that's a big one. I think it would be let go.
Mikenzie: Hmm.
Leila: I think that that need or feeling of wanting to control everything throughout my life, up until when I had my first kid at 33 years old, I wish that I had known that things were going to be okay, that they would be their own selves. That they weren't these like, you know, balls of putty for me to shape and mold.
that actually the job was to look at my children and see who they are and to celebrate who they are, as opposed to thinking they're my responsibility to create or build. and I've heard it said like it's less like a blank canvas where you paint the picture. And it's more [01:02:00] like, a block of stone where you actually like chisel away to find like the beautiful sculpture inside.
And so, yeah, I think it's, seeing what's in front of you and being in awe of it and letting go of what you thought it would be or should be, and celebrating what it is.
Mikenzie: Amazing. That's a great way to end it. Thank you so much for this, Layla. It was a really, really interesting conversation. I'm incredibly inspired by you and your family. it's a really beautiful story, so I appreciate you being so open in this conversation.
Leila: Thank you, Mackenzie. It was such an honor to be a part of it and I can't wait to listen to all the other episodes as well.
Mikenzie: That's all for today's episode of Leaning My Way. If you're enjoying the show, please follow us on Apple
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Know someone with a unique story about balancing [01:03:00] career and motherhood. Or maybe you have that story yourself. Reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Okay, until next time, friends.