The Power Pause: Why Stepping Back Might Be the Most Ambitious Thing You Ever Do

About this episode

Neha Ruch discusses her journey of downshifting after Stanford Business School and how caregiving can be a leadership opportunity for high-achieving women.

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…

People in this episode

Host: Jess Ekstrom

Guest: Neha Ruch

Topics covered

• motherhood
• ambition
• work-life balance
• leadership
• high-achieving women

Keywords

• downshift
• motherhood
• ambition
• leadership lab
• high-achieving women

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stanford Business School

Books & works: The Power Pause

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