How one working mom built a career on her own terms

While it might not always feel like it, working mothers have come a long way in terms of controlling their careers.

Our recent podcast guest, WSJ reporter and author Joann Lublin, wrote about this evolution in her book “Power Moms,” where she discovered that the Boomer generation truly paved the way for their daughters by boldly reshaping the business world in America.

One such example of a Millennial parent who has built a career on her own terms is Amanda Goetz. Amanda is a single mom of three and highly successful brand builder, creator and marketing leader who formerly ran marketing at The Knot. 

We chatted with Amanda to hear all about her working parent journey. Here are three of the highlights from our conversation:

Over the course of three years, Amanda got a divorce, built a company backed by $2 million in venture capital, worked as a fractional CMO and moved her family to Miami. In other words, she was always going - but she liked it that way. 

The hard part, she found, wasn’t juggling all of these areas—it was slowing down.

“I don't think we realize because when we're juggling work and kids and we're constantly just like an object in motion stays in motion, we are just going,” she said. 

After winding up in the ER twice in one week having panic attacks, Amanda knew it was time to take a pause—and, eventually, she sold her company and re-entered the workforce in a corporate role.

After selling her startup in 2022, Amanda entered what she calls her “spin cycle." 

After years of grinding, she took a position as a VP of marketing at a large company - which was a lot easier for her compared to what she was responsible for as a founder.

But in 2023, Amanda started to get the itch to strike out on her own and create something again. 

Amanda is now a successful solopreneur with multiple revenue streams that all come back to personal and professional growth strategies. 

As someone who built her own personal brand on LinkedIn, one noteworthy offering is her daily Break An Egg! Newsletter, which she co-authors with Jack Appleby to help subscribers feel comfortable being their authentic selves on LinkedIn.

“Am I okay with the view I have, or am I ready to climb to the next mountain?”

Like the spin cycle, Amanda often asks herself whether she’s content with the current state of life or if she’s ready to move on to the next thing. 

She uses her “stove” exercise to help with this moment of reflection.

At the start of every month, Amanda sets her priorities for family, career, fitness, fun, travel and other categories. She then determines which priority sits on each burner—and which position and whether she needs to rotate them. 

This allows her to change her intentions as necessary and to enjoy the moment vs. always anticipating the end goal.

“I am very much in this state of enjoying the whole journey, the process,” she said. “I call [my newsletter] Life's A Game for a reason…right now I feel like my life [is a game of] Chutes and Ladders I’ll climb up something and then I'll be like, well, that didn't work. We'll keep going over here!”

She has shared this same mindset to her children. 

“And I say this to my kids all the time: If you are here to just win this game, then you have a 25% chance of happiness. There's four of us playing right now. If you're here to have fun playing the game, you have a 100% chance of happiness,” she said.