Feeling ambitious? We certainly were on Tuesday night as The Cut editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples moderated a “How I Get It Done” panel presented by Smartwater. At the Wythe Hotel, Peoples interviewed a dynamic group of female leaders about their relationship to ambition and lessons from life as working mothers navigating family and business. The panel featured Neha Ruch, founder and author of The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids — and Come Back Stronger Than Ever; Marina Larroudé, co-founder and chief creative officer of shoe brand Larroudé; and Casey Fremont, executive director of the Art Production Fund. Read on for their refreshing takes on work, life, and the impossible promise of “having it all.”
On the many ways to be ambitious: “When I started this work, it was 2016; it was the height of the Lean In movement and the girlboss era. I had my first son and decided to go part-time at work. Then, when I had my second, I eventually paused and I came face-to-face with all of the tropes about what it means to be a stay-at-home mother in America. And I did not feel like I was giving up; I did not feel like I was giving up my feminism or my ambition, and I didn’t feel like I was giving up my career. I felt like this was going to be a time for me to expand my sense of self and explore what came next. I even looked up ‘ambition’ in the dictionary because I thought, I swear, I feel ambitious. I know I’m ambitious, but society doesn’t think I am if I’m here doing diapers and laundry. And Merriam-Webster told me that it was ‘the determination to do things.’ You’re going to do a lot of things over the long term of life.”
