“There is a direct correlation between ‘hustle culture energy’ and our ability to perform. Especially when you can’t control your work environment but have to stay there for some period of time. I wanted to give moms tools to navigate spaces like that in a healthy way,” said Tara Ryan, Growth Leader, Executive Coach, and Activist.
Achieving professional nirvana, the right flexibility, psychological safety and compensation, has always been tricky for caregiving women. Mothers are routinely pushed out of leadership and increasingly, the workforce in our fragile economy. Women accounted for 100% of July’s US job losses, with women of color taking a disproportionate hit.
So how can you create more professional options and build a path that honors your needs, passions and priorities?
Build Work For Your Superpowers
Our kids already prompt us to reevaluate and reinvent, everything. So, it’s probably not a surprise that moms are increasingly drawn to find better options. Including, entrepreneurship, fractional and flex careers.
Tara left her corporate role for greater professional freedom. Even before her kids were born she decided to launch a multidimensional consulting and coaching practice. She explained, “I started partnering with women in pretty high-pressure careers because I spent my first 12 years in software sales and wanted to create resources to help them. And most recently, I’ve really started to dabble in this whole AI world.”
Invest in New Expertise
Tara knew that women were often locked out of professional opportunities. Not only because of inflexible schedules or toxic workplace dynamics, but the unequal distribution of labor in the home. She combined her interest in emerging technology and passion for women’s advancement, to evolve her skills. “I got certified (as an Executive Coach and Fair Play facilitator) because I wanted to help women stay in fields that can be very lucrative and flexible. As long as you’re in the right environment or can personally drown out the noise, focus on yourself and not get sucked in.”
Experiment with Flexibility that Fits
The high-stakes, project management many of us hone in corporate settings, is helpful when starting your own portfolio career or small business. But you’ll also have to learn a lot of new things, including how to sell, build, and work effectively with lean infrastructure.
Although women start businesses at record rates, we’re less likely to receive traditional funding so, we’re more likely to launch solo. Coaching, consulting, fractional and part-time jobs, in addition to speaking and training can allow you to quickly leverage strengths and expertise.
Follow Your Interests
While building her coaching practice, Tara became fascinated with AI and its potential to ease the strain for overworked women. “Getting therapy, coaching, or any type of in-person support is always best and recommended but it’s not always accessible. It doesn’t meet the masses in the way technology potentially could, if built ethically and by people actually experiencing the problem. So, that’s what drove me to try to figure out where AI could help us with the gendered division of unpaid labor.”
Stay Curious but Informed
We all win when AI is developed with care for privacy, safety and inclusiveness. Access to open-source tools and methodologies like ‘vibe coding’ has reduced the barriers to developing tech products. And many small-businesses, including mom-led innovations, are surfacing to address the exhaustion dealing with family logistics.
Including Agenda Hero where Tara now leads growth. She said, “There are a lot of shiny new tools popping up and I am all for trying things. But make sure you read the fine print and know where your data is being shared. Don’t do it without being cautious, aware and intentional.”
Navigate New Competing Priorities
If you’re considering entrepreneurship or flex work of any kind, the not-so-secret reality is, there’s extra mental load. When you’re already raising kids, possibly while caring for your parents or others, the complexity of managing yet another never-done role, can be stressful. And depending on the flavor of entrepreneurship you choose, the income may be less predictable, especially when you begin. It can take time to get established and have the financial part meet your needs.
Manage Your Energy
When I asked Tara, what self-care looks like in her life right now, she said, “self-care is more like an energy check for me. I’m doing an audit each day to ask myself, ‘what is my primary energy?’ If it’s stress, anger or frustration, then I’m not regulating easily. And that means, I need to do something that fills my cup.”
Tara has learned to shift her priorities more proactively as life gets busier. “Whether I need to create a boundary, communicate with somebody or check if I’m aligned with my values, all of those things are self-care to me. When I do my energy audit and feel happy, motivated and connected, my life feels like it’s humming along pretty well and I’m good. But if it’s not, then I know something within my definition of self-care is off kilter. Because I have a 5-month and 3 1/2-year-old right now, I have to do that energy audit way more frequently.”
Pay Attention as Your Needs Change
She added, “I’m in a very demanding season and that has meant setting more boundaries so I can step away a little bit more. I also think about who I need to bring in or ask for support from to do that. Even to get a couple of hours away with a girlfriend for dinner, is not easy with a newborn but I know it’s not easy ever, right? I know that if I don’t show up for myself, I can’t show up for my family, community or career.”
Many thanks to the talented Tara Ryan!
Follow her great adventure on LinkedIn and Instagram. Learn about Agenda Hero and get 20% off of any plan with promo code LAUNCH20.
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About Tara Ryan CPC:
Tara has spent her career at the intersection of leadership, advocacy, and innovation, driven by a commitment to making life more fair, more supportive, and more human, especially for women and mothers. As a sales leader at HubSpot and Brightcove (3X Presidents Club), she built and executed go-to-market strategies at scale. But her true passion has always been creating systems that actually support people in their real lives.
As an executive coach and Fair Play Facilitator, she has spent thousands of hours helping professionals navigate parental leave, workplace bias, leadership challenges, and career growth. She’s built mentorship programs and ERGs, and through Chamber of Mothers, has advocated at both the state and federal level for maternal health, paid leave, and childcare reform.
That work led her to build Confidante, an AI-powered, judgment-free space designed to help moms feel supported, trust themselves, and navigate the invisible load of motherhood.
And now, she brings that same lens to her role as Head of Growth at Agenda Hero. A solution for the chaos of managing modern life. From school calendars to activities to shared responsibilities.
Across everything she builds, coaches, and advocates for, the mission remains the same: to create a world where care is valued, the mental load is shared, and no one has to do it all alone.
