Look Both Ways Podcast

We talk about resilience like it’s a personality trait. We don’t talk nearly enough about what it looks like while you’re inside it. The messy middle. The destructive phase. The fork in the road where you either keep numbing… or you decide to build. This week I sat down with Kathleen Ferguson. Founder. CEO. Mother of three. Competitive bodybuilder. Community builder in the fitness industry. But no...

We talk a lot about following your dreams. Not nearly enough about what it looks like to follow them before everything is figured out. This week, I sat down with Lindsay Tigar, award-winning journalist, fractional brand and storytelling executive, and mother of two, who is packing up her family and moving from Asheville, North Carolina to Copenhagen, Denmark. The visa is not fully approved. The ho...

How Hillary Applegate Designed a Career She Never Had to Choose Between We talk a lot about women “doing it all.” Not nearly enough about the women who actually planned for it. This week I sat down with Hillary Applegate, founder and CEO of Digital HQ, a social-first marketing agency working with brands across industries from “aerospace to guacamole”. Hillary is one of the rare people who looked f...

We spend a lot of time talking about building a career with a clear destination in mind. Not nearly enough time talking about what happens when that destination evolves. In this week’s episode, I sat down with Margot Denommé, and in a lot of ways, she always knew what she wanted to do. At 12 years old, she was reading real murder trial transcripts. Not for school. Not for a class. The criminal jud...

Paula Comfort arrived on a boat. Not metaphorically. Literally — on the HMS Corinthia, crossing the Atlantic from England to Canada because her family couldn't afford to fly. She didn't know she was on a boat. The ship was too big to comprehend. Looking back, it's the perfect metaphor for Paula's entire life: moving toward something enormous without fully knowing what it was yet. Just trusting the...

Marie Berry’s story starts before she was even born. Her German parents received a fax about a baby in Bolivia who would soon be available for adoption. Two days later, they decided to adopt her — and within a week they were on a plane to Bolivia to bring her home. That beginning set the tone for a life defined by bold moves. Marie grew up the only brown-skinned child in a small German town, surro...

When Norma Hogan describes her life a few years ago, it doesn’t sound dramatic at first. She was successful. She was leading. She was delivering. She had spent over a decade in senior customer success and operational leadership roles in tech. She was the kind of leader companies rely on — high output, deeply committed, capable of doing in three days what others might take five to finish. And then,...

Forgiveness. Grit. Becoming. Tammy Soares’s story is what happens when fierce ambition, deep love for family, and a nontraditional path collide —from a small mountain town to the president’s seat of a global digital agency, all while raising two kids and reinventing herself more times than she can count. This episode isn’t about “having it all.”It’s about becoming —again and again. From Mountain R...

This is one of the most meaningful episodes I’ve recorded. Motherhood is not easy — and even in the most “ideal” circumstances, it can feel like a constant series of quiet and not-so-quiet battles. Midori’s story was not ideal. Hard hit after hard hit, the kind that could have taken her down — and nearly did. But she kept going. Small acts of kindness from strangers. A fierce determination to buil...

There's a moment many working mothers face that no one prepares you for: You return from maternity leave. You've done everything "right." You're exhausted, overwhelmed, maybe still healing. And instead of support... there's silence. No plan. No check-in. Just an expectation that you'll pick up exactly where you left off. That's why my conversation with Alexa Starks hit so close to home. Alexa Star...

From ER Hallways to Health Communication — Building a Career While Raising Two in a Pandemic What does it mean to grow up in an operating room — and then become a mother yourself? In this episode of Look Both Ways , I sit down with Dr. Nazli Senyuva — a health communication scholar, University of Southern California faculty member, seasoned journalist, and mother of two — whose work bridges resear...

What does never give up look like in real life — not as a slogan, but as a survival skill? In this episode of Look Both Ways , I sit down with Mia Bjorkroos — a fractional COO, operational strategist, and global fitness industry leader who helped scale Piloxing into more than 90 countries, all while raising two sons. Mia shares her journey from growing up in Sweden, where parenting and partnership...

Beautiful, Chaotic, Transformative: Beth Potter Was Made For More Jenna sits down with Beth Potter, who became a mom at 16, got emancipated, dropped out of high school, and bought her first house at 18. Beth opens up about running an in-home daycare for 12 years, not recognizing herself in family photos, and her pivot into the fitness industry. She talks honestly about climbing the corporate ladde...

When I sat down with my second Look Both Ways guest, Sarah Ray, it reminded me why I love talking with her so much. She takes what could be one of the most exhausting seasons of life and reframes it with clarity and optimism. To her, parenting is its own version of progressive overload —the gradual increase in stress that ultimately builds strength. In other words, the hard stuff is what makes us...

The Tombstone Test: Redefining Success as a Working Mom with Rose Ann Mullet In this episode, Rose Ann Mullet doesn't hold back about the chaos of switching careers mid-pandemic while pregnant, finishing a master's degree with a newborn, and eventually walking away from teaching altogether.  She and Jenna get into the specifics, like why she wore safety goggles to teach while pregnant, what it act...

Trailer: Why “Look Both Ways” Exists — Ambition & Parenthood Without the Either/Or Episode Summary Welcome to Look Both Ways , a podcast for women doing both — building meaningful careers while raising kids. In this first episode, host Jenna shares why she created this show, how her own experience of burnout and motherhood sparked the idea, and what she hopes Look Both Ways will offer: a space for...