Dr. Whitney: Hey everybody, it's Dr. Whitney. Welcome back to the Modern Mommy Doc Podcast. It is my pleasure to welcome two women who are working moms, but not in the traditional brick and mortar, go to the office sense, who are doing something really ambitious with their lives. And so I wanted to talk to them because some days we forget about these different parts of the working mom life. So I have Ms. Taylor Raven and Rose Wetzel. Ladies, introduce yourselves. Taylor, let's start with you.

Taylor: I'm Taylor Raven. I'm a mom to a really cute 14 month old, and I am an opera singer, so that keeps my life pretty interesting. I'm on the road a lot and she's in tow with me.

Rose: Hello everybody. I'm Rose Wetzel and I am a mother of a six year old daughter Taylor, who just started kindergarten. And I am a professional obstacle course racer, so I don't do a ton of traveling year round, but I definitely have some bouts with intense travel, some upcoming world championships in Belgium and Abu Dhabi. And I have a very untraditional job in the fact that I have a lot of flexibility, which I appreciate, but I'm also just always on as a professional athlete. You don't really turn it off.

Dr. Whitney: You're constantly on. Yeah. Well, hey, congratulations on the kindergarten moment, because I don't know how you have been feeling once your child went to kindergarten, but I remember, of course, having these mixed emotions about sending my baby off to school, but also this feeling of real freedom. Before when they're doing just little bits here and there, daycare or preschool or whatever, it's so limited. Or when they're in daycare, they can get really sick. But once they go to kindergarten, it's a chunk of time that you have to yourself to get some things done.

Rose: Yes. It's bittersweet for sure. She was ready to go like, see ya. But it was great. She's ready and that's huge. And then yes, these large chunks of time, knowing she's in great hands, learning, is just a game changer.

Dr. Whitney: That's so awesome. All right. Now Taylor, as you said, you have a 15 month old and, yet, you have your little one on the road with you. Talk to us about what that's been like over the last year and a half, because, of course, there's so many different stages that go quickly in the first year and a half. From being this crying infant that needs tons of assistance, up all night. And then once you get into those toddler years, way more active, maybe if you're staying in a hotel or in an Airbnb, you're worried they're gonna break things. So talk to me about what the different challenges are and then maybe what are some of the things that you found that are unexpected moments of joy?

Taylor: Yeah. Oh man. I think in the beginning, the hardest part is just that they need you constantly and they have no independence. And I found that to be extremely difficult, especially with my job, which is very interpersonal. So when I'm at work, I'm not kind of zoning out and going into a task by myself. I'm having to interact with people and be vulnerable and all these things. And then I come home and this little one is like, hold me all day. And I found that to be the most mentally fatiguing and it was really hard for me. I kind of just white knuckled through it, to be honest. I had a lot of support on top of that and it was still so hard. My husband's mother came with us for my first gig back, and she was amazing, but I was full-time breastfeeding, so there's only so much help you can take. But the older she got, the easier it got. She's very independent. She'll just walk off and go and find something to do and I can just kind of keep my eye on her. So it is so different.

The traveling is horrific. There's so many things you have to bring: the travel crib, the car seat, and the stroller, and then you have to bring your things and you have to bring her things. I have a hilarious picture of my husband wearing the car seat on his back and pushing two suitcases and then kicking the travel crib. And I'm holding her and it's chaos. 

My husband transitioned out of working remotely into being a stay at home dad and that has been the best thing for us. He comes with me and he takes care of her when I'm at work, and then I give him a break when I get home and it's just more balanced. And I feel we operate better that way. I don't know how sustainable that is, but for now, it really, really works for us. So, yeah, it's just changing every week and you just have to kind of go with the flow.

Dr. Whitney: So two things you said that I think a lot of moms will resonate with. One, is just this idea of your travel things not being your own anymore. My husband is really big on efficiency through the airport. We have the TSA pre-check and he only brings one little tiny bag and nobody gets to over pack. But then when you have the little kids, it doesn't matter what you want. They have to have all the things, you have to bring all the stuff that does get so much better over time. But it is a point of stress to physically be doing it all by carrying all those things as a family and then needing a bigger car to put stuff in and needing a space to put all the things. 

And then the other thing that you talked about was this idea, and I'm sure this is probably true for you as well, Rose, is, for all three of us really, the job is so outward facing.

You're constantly in a performance mode. It's glad handing people and saying hi and being on. And for my work as well, being very vulnerable and emotional and trying to be very focused. I get up in front of a group of people and speak to a room of 600 people and then just get to be on autopilot. I have to be very, very dialed in. And so to come home after that is sometimes draining because your kids don't know what your day was like, that you just put in all this effort. You weren't sitting at a computer just clicking buttons. They expect you to be fully there. Rose, have you had that experience where you feel like, man, I just did this crazy obstacle course. I just did this crazy physical thing and now emotionally, I don't know how much more bandwidth I have left?

Rose: Oh, it totally, yeah. When my daughter, Taylor, was two, I was on American Ninja Warrior and actually she knew I was on TV because she was there and she gave me a high five at the starting line. So she knew that I was doing something big, but the reality is that she doesn't really know at two years old and really not even much at six that this is an extra big day. Mommy's gonna be on TV. The thing she's training for all year is today. Maybe it goes really well and that's great, maybe it doesn't go well and mommy needs a moment to focus and figure out what she needs to work on.

But the two, the three, the four, certainly not the zero year old and, and really not even so much the six year old, they don't understand that.They just want you to play. I found it can help if you can learn what their love language is. Are you familiar with the theory of love languages? So apparently it works for kids as well. I've tried to figure out what my kid's love language is, because then I can get more bang for my buck with my effort. So it turns out my kid loves gifts. I am much more of a words person and time. She likes gifts, and gifts are great, don't get me wrong, but they're just not super high on my list.

I was one of nine kids growing up, which there was never enough to go around. I couldn't rely on gifts to feel loved. So I'm learning, I gotta hit up the Dollar Store on the way home and find some trinket for her, and then she can receive that, feel loved, and then go off in the corner and play with that. And that gives me a few moments to gather myself and kind of regroup after a really intense, forward facing, performance type of day.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah, absolutely. You know, on the trinket front, what I have found with my kids, everywhere I travel, I get them a little key chain. And so they keep them on their backpacks now from all the different places that I go. There's an Orlando one and a New York one or whatever. One of my kids is very gift oriented as well. And so that's cheap enough that I can buy it and it's not gonna break the bank, but it's enough for her to feel that this is something really fun that I got from mom on her trip.

What advice would either of you have for moms who have a big dream for themselves, but feel like maybe there's not enough room in being a mom and being a worker to have room for both of those dreams? To have the dream of being an amazing mom and have the dream of pursuing this amazing thing that you care the most about? What's the advice that you would give for someone who’s grappling with feeling like maybe I shouldn't go after my dream?

Taylor: Well, that's a big question. What I thought of when you asked that question was what example I wanted to leave for Jade, for my daughter. And I want her to look at me and it to be a reflection of who she wants to become when she's older and what she wants to do in her life. And I think I want her to look up to me in that way: Mom wanted to do this and she did it. When women choose to focus solely on their kids, that's 100% something that I admire. I just wanna set a good example for her so she knows you don't have to choose as a woman. 

And if you choose to have a job and be a mom, you can do it and it's possible. And if you choose to just have a job and not be a mom, that's cool. And if you choose to just be a mom, that's cool. But I just want her to know that she doesn't really have to choose one or the other if she doesn't want to. And so I think that is the big thing. But there's the practical side of needing so much support to do both. So you have to establish that support first, before you go down the path of the balancing act of being a working mom.

Dr. Whitney: I love that. I think a ton about this idea of modeling or imagining what I want life to be like for my kids all the time. I think about that all the time when I think about my husband and how I want my kids to be treated by their partner. And I use that a lot, actually, with my partner and the way I wanna divide up things at our house. Let's think about what we want our kids to experience when they're older. What do we want their expectations to be? Because whatever we do, that's what they're gonna think is normal. That's what they're gonna think is okay. Like you said, everything's fine, but this podcast is primarily working moms that are listening to it. So I think we're safe to say the majority of women that are listening to this podcast do have some other big thing outside of their kids that they wanna pursue and that they wanna be part of or that brings a lot of satisfaction. What do you think, Rose?

Rose: Taylor, you hit the nail on the head and I'd love to build off the last thing you touched on, which is having a really strong base. So the first thing that I thought of was if someone's saying, I'm here right now in my life and I wanna do something else bigger, different, you name it, I recommend stepping back and building an even stronger foundation. However high you want your tower to go up, make sure you've got a strong enough foundation to support the level of the hight that you want to get. So for me, I happen to also have a really supportive husband, and that's huge. Not everyone has a supportive partner. Not everyone has a partner at all. Doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means you need to cultivate a support network with other people and be a support for others.

A lot of what I've found, too, is that you can't overdo the basics. So for me, that's sleep, which I know is hard for a lot of people. But as an athlete, sleep is absolutely crucial. Maybe as a singer, it's even more like hydration. I have to be hydrated or I cannot sing. Whenever I'm like, God, I feeling kinda overwhelmed, let's step back. How am I doing with my basics? What can I cut out that is not a direct line to my biggest goal that I have? And then regroup. So it's nutrition for me, specifically, but really I think everyone can relate to this. Am I taking care of myself physically, mentally? There's some saying I've heard that's something like, "meditate for 20 minutes a day, and if you're too busy to do that, meditate for an hour." 

So take care of your basics. And for me it's sleep, it's nutrition, and also supplementation. I've been taking a supplement called Mitre Q that works on the cellular foundation. I'm 41 years old. My cells don't have quite the zip and zest that they did before, because, as we age, our cells start to decline. But I'm lining up on world championship race start lines with people 20 years younger than I am. And when I do things like taking supplements like this one that's a micro antioxidant that really goes in and energizes my cells, then I feel confident that I can mix it up with the best of them. 

So nutrition, supplementation, sleep, hydration, meditation, socializing. Some people really need a lot of social time. Some people need a lot of alone time. Whatever it is that you need, find that foundational piece that you can rely on, recoil, and then you can blast off and conquer the world.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah, totally. Okay. So super interesting. And I was telling this to Taylor before we started recording for the podcast today. I was just on somebody else's podcast. And basically they asked me a similar question about if you wanna live a more centered life or a life that has more meaning or satisfaction, how do you do it?

And I was talking about this idea from my new book called Doing It All, where you basically spend some time getting back, zooming out, thinking about what are the things that bring me joy and what are my real values? And trying to have five of each and combining them to create five priorities in your life. And then deciding those are the places I'm gonna put the vast majority of my time and my energy. And then all the other things in my life I'm gonna get them done, but not waste time on them, basically. Try to do them efficiently or give them to someone else or say no to or whatever. 

And they go, Whitney, there's no way that women who are overwhelmed can do that. It feels like so much work. And to your point, Rose, I was like, okay, well if you wanna build a house, I guess you could just keep on putting bricks on top of a bunch of sand or not put any foundation on the bottom. But we're talking about if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are feeling like you wanna pursue something that's you're really passionate about, plus be an amazing mom, I just don't think it's possible without zooming out a little bit and thinking about what are the things that matter to me? How am I gonna set myself up for success? 

Now, I'm sure, Taylor, you could speak to this because you're in the thick of it right now even more than Rose and I are, but it's not like you have everything figured out. I'm sure you've learned a ton along the way and it's not like you sat there and created a whole business plan for your work mom life. But is Rose, right? Are there certain things that you do to make sure that you're able to do your job really well, to keep on reaching your dream?

Taylor: It's really interesting to hear Rose talk from an athletic perspective because we opera singers like to kind of go about our lifestyle in a very similar way, athletically. We have to take care of our body, our health. Yes, we have to hydrate, we have to sleep. We have to sleep. We have these little vocal folds in our throat that are the size of a dime and we use them for everything. And they're super vulnerable. And if we don't sleep, they don't recuperate. Like a muscle, they don't regenerate and relax. It's really interesting, I've started waking up an hour before my daughter, which sounds counterintuitive, but she's kind of a late sleeper. All the books say wake them up at seven. But I don't. I let her sleep into whenever she wants.

I get up at seven and I do my 20 minute yoga and have some quiet time. I make my coffee, I sit on the couch, I just have a moment to myself and she wakes up about eight and that one hour in the morning just sets me up. It's just my time to where I'm Taylor. I'm not just a mom. I'm not just a singer. I'm a person. Just to have that moment. I could do better with sleep for sure. I love to stay up late and like doodle bop around my house and do stupid things that I shouldn't do. And I really should sleep more. I need to work on that. But I take that one hour in the morning and my husband knows if Jade wakes up, he goes and gets her, because that's just like my time. So yeah I like to check those boxes too of eating well, drinking water, sleeping. It doesn't always happen.

Dr. Whitney: I had a psychologist on the podcast recently, Dr. Morgan Klip. She has an amazing book that's just best about her phrase that she uses is "Go mom yourself," which I love. Because of course you would make sure your kids get water, you wouldn't let your kids stay up all night long, you wouldn't feed your kids, only junk food, you wouldn't make your kids run around frazzled. But we don't take care of ourselves in that same way. So basically her point is like, you have to treat your little inner child the same way that you would everybody else in your life. 

Rose, how do you feel like being a mom has influenced your profession and your work? What positive things do you feel like being a mom has brought? Is there anything that it's taught you? Is there anything that you feel like, wow, because I'm a mom, I'm a better athlete in this way, or I've been more successful in this way?

Rose: Great question. So I use my body to do my job in a very physical manner. So, going through pregnancy and then postpartum clearly got in the way of being able to just get up and go and race and race well and all of that. So after I had my daughter, I had to really evaluate, Is this dream, this goal, this really unique career that I've worked so hard to get to--is it worth all the time it's gonna take to come back as an athlete? Or is it time to just get that office job and sell some stuff and say, you know, gosh, that was fun while it lasted. And I thought hard and long about it. And I wanted to show my daughter what it was like to persevere. 

I lost a lot of blood in childbirth, and so I was anemic after giving birth. And that did not bode well for running. It doesn't help anybody for living, but definitely difficult for running. And so I did really dig myself out of the trenches. It took longer than I thought. I was like, I'm gonna bounce back because I'm motivated and hardworking. And it was really humbling. And I think that it made me a better athlete and that there was that kind of "mom strong" that came out. I had a more meaningful reason to do it. It wasn't just about me or inspiring people on Instagram. My daughter is watching and she's seeing me literally sometimes pick myself up when I fall down in a race and slip on mud or whatever. And I think there's a lot of value to that. And so that got me to push through and dig deeper on extra challenging days.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah. Oh, so much about modeling today. I love that this was not the conversation I was thinking we would have, but I do think it's true. And I guess one thing I wanna say, because I'm sure that there's some people who are out there thinking like, well, gosh, "No pressure. Our kids are watching us." Sure, but that doesn't mean you have to be perfect. You just talked about falling down and picking yourself up. 

Today I apologized to my kids after I dropped them off. I had to take them quickly to school early so I could make it back to record a different podcast. They were all flustered when they got to school and I go, sorry guys. I know this is because of me that you guys are feeling flustered, so sorry. I shouldn't have planned it this way. Next time I'll know that I need five or 10 extra minutes buffer to make this happen. And they're like, that's okay. But I'm hoping that that type of vulnerability or self-reflection helps them to not be so self-critical of themselves as they get older as they're trying to juggle things. I think that's an important piece of being a mom that we can teach our kids for sure. Taylor, how has being a mom influenced your career?

Taylor: Oh, man, I think I've got this kind of new capacity, but I feel like I'm so much more empathetic. I feel like I read situations and people a little differently now. I think that transfers to my work and as an actress and a singer. I sang Carmen this summer at Des Moines Metro Opera, and I brought her with me. And so my whole family was with me. And it's one of those roles where you're on stage the whole night and you're the title character. My personality as a person is one where I don't want all the attention on me. I love roles where I can support and lift up someone else in a show. And so I was doing this thing for the first time being THE person on stage. 

And I found that being a mom totally helped me get through it and manage it. The multitasking that you learn how to do as a mom, it's just super helpful when you have a limited amount of time to practice. And now I'm just like, all right, I've got 50 pages to learn in three weeks, here we go. And I'll do it the hour that she's napping. I'm gonna go into turbo mode here and I'm just gonna get it done. And so my brain is just more task oriented than it used to be. So I think empathy and just an ability to make a plan and to tell my brain, this is what we're doing right now because this is the only time that you have today to do it. So in that way it really helps.

And also I just love when my daughter’s with me and she gets to meet all of my castmates. She would come, I was still nursing her at the time this summer, and she would come to the building and meet all of my castmates and all of my friends that I was working with, and she became like a part of the family there. And I think when she gets older and she starts to really understand what she's doing and who she's with, I think it's just gonna be really a cool part of her life to meet so many people and live in so many different places. And I think it's just gonna keep her open to people and to the world. So I think that's really cool. I'm not quite brave enough now for her to come to stuff. I feel like I'm scared. I don't know. Rose, you said that your daughter comes to your races, but I'm wondering, does your mind ever go into mom mode on accident while you're racing? I'm afraid I'll hear her squeal or something and I'm gonna get distracted.

Rose: Well you know that she's in good hands, right? And so do I. So I know that, yes, even if I hear "mommy," she's okay. I've been lucky, because so far the only times I've ever even interacted with her right before a race has been positive. One time, it was a livestream race, so not on NBC Sports or anything, but still a livestream race. We're lining up, with a minute or two to start and she wants me to meet her new friend. She's almost six and waving at me and trying to get me to come over. I knew I couldn't cross over or my chip will get all messed up with my time. Somehow she gets over to me and gave me the world's biggest hug and I started to almost cry and I was like, I've already won. So I got this huge hug from her and then she ran off. It took all of 25 seconds, filled my heart with joy. Granted, I wasn't up on stage, Taylor, it's a starting line, you know? But still, it was so cute. And I think I got like a turbo boost and then Spartan race filmed it and took the clip and blasted it out on social media. So everything end ended up being great. Someone commented though, yes, you got the the fun side where you got a boost. But if someone had run up and been like, your daughter just hit her head, it's a different story. Your heart lives over here and you're trying to perform and get in the zone. Something wonderful from your kid can boost it, but just as quickly that could've been negative. Being able to compartmentalize is super hard.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah totally. I've had it be that I'm supposed to go on stage and my husband has called me and I've made the mistake of picking up the phone. And it's my autistic daughter, saying, mommy so and so doesn't like me anymore. And she's sobbing, you know what I mean? And I was like, oh, I was thinking this was gonna be something really quick, you know, like five minutes before you're supposed to go on. And it's not. It's this catastrophic moment for her. So I do think sometimes that can be kind of hard, but I've learned now after that that “do not disturb” goes on 20 minutes ahead, 30 minutes ahead. I can't be distracted. That part of my preparation time where I need to do whatever type of meditation or do whatever type of breathing work, do whatever type of, practicing that I need to with other people is so important. So I think there's a hundred percent ways to get around. 

By the same token, similar to you Rose, I've had my daughter come in in the middle of podcast recording, and say something that's so sweet or show up and say she wants to be part of a video. My youngest daughter's on the cover of my first book and in the grocery store will be like, my mom's a famous author, which I'm not, but she's my mom's that famous author and I'm the cover of a book and then I'll get a book sale. I'm not out there pedaling my kid, but it is this benefit I think like professionally. It's someone I wouldn't have even thought of making a connection with, honestly. Not even about business. It's about being a mom and the kids absolutely bring out that side where you think, well you look like you're a mom so you should have this information as well here. My mom has some information to tell you. You know? So I do think kids make it, on the whole, a hundred percent better.

Well thank you both so much for being here. As we close out, I would love it if each of you. I'll start with Rose. I could just give one or two practical pieces of advice for people who, from a career standpoint, are interested in doing something like you are doing. So if you have any pieces of advice about breaking into an industry or working in athletic position or Taylor anything about kind of the music world or opera. Just because I think people ask me lots of questions about that too, about being an author, about speaking, how to do those things. So for people that are interested in these out of the box, not in an office careers, what's a piece of advice you might give them?

Rose: Get a coach. I am a coach. I have a coach. Get a coach. Get a coach. So obviously if you're trying to get stronger, get a strength coach. Get better at speaking, get a speaking coach. I have a speaking coach. I need to work on speaking slower, I know, but I'm getting there. I took a life coaching certification and am starting Badass Hot Mess Life Coaching. And I'm working on things on myself first. And the biggest thing that's helped me is just, like I said, stepping back and looking at the foundation. If I had 50 clients tomorrow just dying to be serviced by me, would I even have the capacity to take them on? And so I read the book by Susie Orman called Women and Money and it taught that you know where your money's going and have it work for you. So it's there when you wanna take your business to the next level or whatever the case may be. So to me, money and personal finance goes into the foundational part.

Because it's really very confidence building to have your act together in all the departments, especially that one. So hire a coach, read books that will help with foundational organization like Susie Orman's Money and Women. And then as far as athletics specifically, it's just a matter of what are you both good at and enjoy and what are you willing to be doing many, many, many hours a day? Like even when it's what you enjoy, but it's no longer enjoyable every minute. So have this staying power and are you able to let your hobby turn into a job? Some people are like, I love to paint. You're such a good artist. And sometimes it can be valuable to have that hobby/slash profession where you do art, maybe you make some money or maybe you make a lot of money. That's great, but then you have another job where you actually can pay the bills, so you can let that creative side of you flow out and not always have to force it or force performances.

Dr. Whitney: I love that. That's great advice. What do you think Taylor?

Taylor: Well, there's so many different ways to be a singer and to be a performer and to be a classical musician in general. So I think, to speak broadly, finding how and what way you wanna be a performer or be a singer. Is that as a soloist, is that as a member of a chorus. Do you just wanna be on stage and work as a super or as an actress or do you have an instrument that you play? These are all things to consider and then find people or a person who can mentor you. I think mentorship is huge in what we do. Find someone through word of mouth or through research that does what you wanna do and talk to them. 

And then on top of that, I think when I found out I was pregnant, the first thing that I did was reach out to moms who I knew had done this. They were performers and they were moms and I've reached out to a few people that were a little older than me and had had their career going and I asked them like, what do I do? One of my friends sent me a list of this journal that she had written from the years that she had been traveling with her kid of just like things that came up. Just very vulnerable and sweet. She shared this is what I was thinking at this point and what I was thinking at that point and all these things and it was just so helpful to me. So I think finding what you want to do and how you want to go about it or how you want to find a mentor and then talk to people who are doing both and kind of immerse yourself in that way of thinking and go about it that way.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah, that 100%. I think kind of the mentorship, but then like-minded people. There's gonna be tons of naysayers. There's gonna be tons of people that say you can't do that or that's too hard. But there are people out there that are like you and those are your people. If you're going for something that's big, something that's different, your people are the dreamers. Your people are the people who understand you. So surround yourself with more people who can support you and encourage you when you feel like stopping, when you feel like not continuing to run, or not continuing to speak, or not continuing to write, or not continuing to sing every single night. 

Because you're absolutely right, Rose, that there is this staying power piece of it. Once it becomes a thing that you rely on to keep your house running, to pay your bills, to pay your mortgage, then sometimes it's not always fun every single moment anymore. And so you need that staying power and that encouragement to be able to keep on keeping on and to get yourself through those tough times till you get to the joyful parts again. Alright, thanks you guys so much for being here. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you next time.