And And

My wife and I have long thought about creating a podcast. We’ve drafted show topics and outlines, listed potential titles, thought about guests, laid plans. This week, our planning came to life with the debut of And And, a podcast about balancing career and life:

Balancing personal and professional goals between a couple is an age‐old question, but the questions and answers change constantly. The definitions of “career” and “couple” and “family” have changed, and we are all working on finding the new answers to pursuing success in family and career. The tension between personal, professional, creative, philanthropic, and entrepreneurial goals forces us to make hard choices in how we use our limited time, energy, passion, and money. In each episode we will cover timely topics with guests that have the hard‐won insights and experiences to add to the conversation.

I listen to lots of podcasts - making coffee in the morning, driving, long walks through the neighborhood - and I know the types of podcasts I enjoy. Interesting people talking about interesting things. Deep, developed, thought out points of view with experience and numbers. Conversations that dive in deep into a topic where I come out more knowledgable in the end.

The debut episode was with Jessica Shortall, author of Work, Pump, Repeat, where we talked about the issue of parental leave and why it’s an important issue for the US economy, how attitudes towards parental leave is changing, and, yes, breast pumping. I knew very little about parental leave until I saw her TED talk, and even less about breast pumping until we had our first child a couple months ago. So listen to the first episode here, and of course, if you like it, leave a review. Looking forward to hearing what you think of this and future episodes.

* * *

More: My wife and I talked a bit about how we approach balancing and integrating life, career, family, technology, starting businesses, and more, on Forbes. The podcast is part of the Forbes Network; we’re excited to be working with partners that are supporting a wide range of conversations and new voices. Check out the other shows on the Forbes Network here.