I’ve talked to a lot of women about their careers—but what Neha Ruch said about “nailing the dismount” when leaving a job? That stuck with me, and I knew I wanted to learn more.

In this episode, Neha, the founder of Mother Untitled and author of The Power Pause, opens up about the quiet grief of stepping back from work, the invisible expectations placed on modern mothers, and the mindset shifts that helped her, and thousands of others, reclaim their career and life narrative on their own terms. She and I dive into the real stuff: the pressure to “lean in,” the fear of losing your spot, the quiet guilt that follows moms into daycare pickup lines and exit interviews.

Neha shares the practical strategies and hard-earned insights that help women take intentional pauses from work, stay connected to their ambition, and return with clarity, confidence, and strength.

What You’ll Discover:

• Why Neha traded a dream job for a different kind of fulfillment (18:30)
• How to talk about being “on pause” in a way that feels strong and self-defined (25:09)
• Why women need to start “nailing the dismount” when stepping back from a job (28:11)
• How motherhood can spark, not stifle, creativity and reinvention (38:01)
• Practical tools for navigating finances, identity shifts, and career pivots (47:18)
• Neha responds to listener questions about how to approach a pause (53:04)

Whether you’re a parent navigating your own pause, a partner trying to understand it, or simply someone rethinking what success looks like—this conversation is a guidepost. Neha's groundbreaking work is shifting how we view, understand, and talk about career pauses.

Neha doesn’t just talk about redefining ambition. She shows us how it’s done.

To connect with Neha Ruch, check out: 

The Power Pause site: www.thepowerpause.com 

Find Neha on Instagram @neha_ruch 

You can watch this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Cibt65CEbzc 

For a full transcript and more, check out our blog post: https://www.lindsaycz.com/show-notes/neha-ruch-04

[00:00:31] Lindsay: Hey everybody, I'm Lindsay Czarniak and this is Things No One Tells You. This is a podcast about the behind the scenes moments that shape who we are, those things that also are really relatable and really connect us. So each week I'm gonna talk with Newsmakers Trailblazers in the worlds of sports, entertainment, all things, but also everyday folks, people who are talking about the real stuff that no one tends to share.

[00:01:35] And, it's super soft. It's just that classic jersey gray. And it says “Live From New York. It's Saturday night.” And I bought this when I was with my husband, shopping at the NBC store because I love SNL. And I just love what this represents. I love that moment on the show. But when I wanted to share with you, and the reason I did partially also keep this on is because I am taking an improv class.

[00:02:47] I really love it because it is really scary and it's really hard. And what my teacher Mike always talks about is don't try to be funny. Don't try to go for the joke. It's really a practice and listening to whoever you're on stage with at the moment and being in the moment and finding the humor in just the improv of it all. So anyway, I say that because it's taught me a lot about just being humble, listening, trying to, do something that is really outta your comfort zone. But I love it. Sometimes I leave and I'm like, I really was horrible and empathetic and I, it just makes you wanna get up and do it again. for some reason anyway, I also really believe that it's important for everyone to like, have something that they like to try or do on the side. And I certainly believe that when there's something that you haven't done before, just give it a go and why not? So anyway, I'm, last night was our final class of the semester and it was just a lot of fun.

[00:04:29] Her book is called The Power Pause, and it is all about the intentional act of putting a pin in your career to stay at home and be with your children, raise your children with the intention of then going back to work on the other side of that. And honestly, I'm sure there are other examples out there, but it was the first time that I had been watching something and I saw someone talking about and putting a name to what that time could be.

[00:05:42] Why don't people share that and talk about that? Because what I know is when you're in the thick of it, in the grind of your kids being little and all the things that go along with that, and sure there are amazing moments, but there are moments that make you for sure exhausted that sometimes you just feel like you're slogging. If I framed that time in a way of thinking like, okay, you've got this capped amount of time to really enjoy that. I think I would look at the whole thing differently. My son is doing a basketball camp, but I have become the most embarrassing person at the dropoff.

[00:07:08] So anyway, oh my goodness, it took me back to what has been on my mind. When someone said that to me about your kids really starting to pull away at 12. They want to be more with their friends, and then it happens really fast. It makes me think a lot about my own desires and drive, and I had an interview with my grandma that I did for, a podcast episode and my grandmother who passed last year, and I asked her what the secret was and what the one thing when she thinks back that she's grateful for. And without missing a beat, my grandma started crying and she said, you've just gotta make sure to keep your kids close.

[00:08:06] But, it also, I've thought a lot about how I grew up and my mom did not... she stayed at home for two years and she always says that it was because I guilted her into it, which I know is not true. But, in a way my mom took a power pause from teaching to be with my brother and I, and then came back on the other side.

[00:08:51] That there is a way that you can actually use that not only to the benefit of your family, but that you can use that in a way that it is going to help you on the other side of it, when you do decide, you know what, I wanna go back and I wanna do that thing, I wanna explore whatever it is, X, y, z. I'm gonna take a moment to share a little levity here because for those of you that follow on social, you know that I like to do a Joke of the Day.

[00:10:03] I think sometimes what I hear women talk about more and more, and men too, is that question... When you're in a place and you're with people you don't know, maybe some that you do, and they're like, Hey, so what are you doing now? I know I hate that because now my life looks a lot different. I can't, I don't have a one line answer like, oh, I'm hosting SportsCenter. Oh, I'm covering this. Oh, I'm doing that. I had found so much anxiety around oh, now I'm, I'm freelancing and I'm doing some of this work and some of this work. And it's like I am telling myself to shut up 'cause I just keep talking. That is such a hard thing and it all boils down to self-worth.

[00:11:08] So when Neha wrote about and talked about and what you're going to hear, specific language to use when you're in those situations, I was literally like, I cannot read and underline this fast enough because it just makes so much sense and there are so many concrete great examples. But also at the end of the day, it is like she has really touched on this huge connecting piece, which is everyone is really in this together and no one really cares and just be confident and own you and do you, and I think at the end of the day, for me, a lot of that comes down to this constant push and pull of really wanting to do the jobs that we're passionate about, but also really wanting to maximize the time that just keeps getting smaller and smaller as kids get older.

[00:12:30] Neha, thank you so much for joining me. I just have to share out of the gate that when I heard about The Power Pause, your book and when I read more about Mother Untitled, it was like this magnetic force pulling me to it for so many different reasons. 'cause I just love what you're doing, the narrative of working women, taking a pause with the intention of coming back even better on the other side. Welcome and how are you? And let's just start with where are you right now?

[00:13:17] Obviously the kids are off of school because why not? And coming off of the last few months where I had the privilege to get to see this book out into the world, it's been a really interesting moment for me to figure out how to continue this work while making it sustainable, because I still want more time with my kids.

[00:13:50] Neha: Yeah, so I started work on this actually in 2017. I had my child in 2016 on New Year's Day and he's so punctual, so it's very on brand for him.And I was rocking with him in the middle of the night thinking, yeah, I'm sleep deprived. Yes, there's milk everywhere. But I actually finally feel at peace, and I think something about that I had been looking for a long time and hadn't found it in my career.

[00:14:55] Like they're not serving these guys cocktails. At the end of the day, they are like considering freelancer, consulting, or they're like tinkering with a new idea. None of it matches the tropes. And when I looked around, there was such great content around the traditional working parent, right? Like the Lean In movement, the Girl Boss era.But it seemed to count anyone like myself, who was just taking their foot off the gas for a moment to lean into motherhood, it seemed to count us out. So I started this as a project and it's obviously grown since.

[00:16:09] And that, and I was very much in a highly, and still it's a highly competitive field that I'm in, but when I was at ESPN, it was like, I, remember being like, I'm just gonna take eight weeks of maternity leave with my first child. I'm like, I don't need more. I don't need more. And I hadn't had a child yet. And I just remember being like, I was so terrified of losing my spot. Not that I felt like it was going to happen maliciously or anything, but I just was... The narrative was, you just gotta be there and you know how many people are behind you. So it was fascinating to me once I had my son and I was like, oh my God. So when you're describing the rocking and the being in that moment and being surprised and just feeling all the feels of what motherhood brings, and I know that's a different circumstance for everyone.

[00:17:21] Neha: I loved my career and it didn't disappear. And I think that I've only recently realizing, I graduated college when social media was so nascent, like Twitter wasn't there yet, right? Yeah. And so I got so much of life as luck. And I got, they were like, you're 22, you should probably do the social media research to figure out what people think of, T-Mobile or Chili's. I was in advertising. And it ended up being the foundation for me to climb the ranks very quickly because no one else was paying attention to social media.

[00:18:30] Like I was in, I was too young to participate in those. So I was feeling like the ick factor from politics. I loved what I did. So I actually went to business school. I got into Stanford, and I went to business school because I wanted a train stop to surround myself with smart people and figure out what came next. And I got what on paper was my dream job. I was like, oh, I'll just go to this tech company and run brand marketing there. It was marketed towards millennial women. It was a company called Zola. So if you got married in the like 20 13, 20 14 era, that was like your registry. And on paper it all made sense, but there was still this feeling of I was climbing... I was trying to contort myself to fit in the spaces right. And prove my value. And I think I really loved what I did and then, but I found that sense of belonging and not having to try so hard. And ironically, I think I looked at Bodhi and thought maybe this is the train stop that I was looking for in business school to surround myself with a different set of people and figure out what came next. So I don't think I stepped into that time with him ever believing like that this was a career ender. So that was the mismatch between my experience with him and the, and what I was hearing.

[00:19:54] Neha: So then I had started this… I was consulting, I was at the office two days a week at first, and, because I went part-time. And then I started to meet these women and think, I wanna shine a light on you. Like you, Caroline, who wasn't merchandising and just got laid off and you're freelancing, but you're at home with your kid. Or you, her name was Susie K. And she had been at HSBC. She was a banker and she just didn't wanna fly to Hong Kong anymore with a little baby.

[00:21:02] Lindsay: It's life. I love it. It's coconut. Your dog's name is Coconut? Oh, I love this.

[00:21:16] Lindsay: What kind is she?

[00:21:24] Lindsay: I love it. I love it. Our, we have an Irish doodle and I just can't, I can't get enough of him. He's just, he gives the best hugs.

[00:21:39] Lindsay: Things None Tells You about Your Pets.

[00:22:07] Lindsay: And were you highlighting people in the newsletter? Is that how it began?

[00:22:40] And I would either word-vomit on them, or as soon as I was home with my kids, their eyes would glaze over or be like, that's so sweet, I could never do that. I really spent those years, and I'm so glad I had those years building the work alongside, having actually paused, even though at the time I would really struggle with looking around and being like, oh, that platform's growing so much and this conversation is so important, but it can't be that big. 'Cause I'm still choosing to be at home with my kids. And there's an irony of starting the first platform about women pausing when you're on a pause. And yet I'm so glad because every one of the chapters of the book is having run into an issue and having had to overthink it to come up with the language that I would feel good about.

[00:23:54] They are also, I'm sure, folks that are not mothers. They are women who have chosen to stay home. There are women who have continued to work, but I do really believe that what you've hit upon is, and like through this, this topic you have come across and provided really valuable ways for people who are in all spheres of that. Because when I'm reading through like the specific examples you have of keep your answer succinct, pick your words carefully, and you said, "I like to say, 'I get to be home with my kids.'" And literally when I was reading this and I'm like, oh, I get to be home with my kids and you would've started with, right now I am home with my kids.

[00:25:09] Neha: Yeah. I think three pieces, right? One is I want you to take this sense that you are giving up on your ambition and your feminism and put it away, right? I think that is one of the things that haunts women when they're making a career shift, especially if they have. Gain so much self-worth and experience in climbing the ranks. This idea that they are somehow giving up, no. All of that incredible experience goes with you. Like all of those accomplishments do not evaporate.

[00:26:20] I wanna dispel the idea that one side, whether you're working or staying at home, is a luxury, right? Because when we associate one side with that word, we deem it less worthy of support, and we deem it less worthy of value. And I think one of the fears that when women pause, they're like, am I giving up on my financial independence? And it is a risk, right? And I think it's really important that women or men who are preparing for that pause spend at least six months preparing with their partner ahead of time. And so they're having conversations at that point about what do we want or need for this chapter in our life? And it's at that juncture as you're thinking about household income out, the values of your home and budgeting for that, and you're trying to figure out the math, that you also decide that if someone is pausing or shifting to provide care, work in the home, the partner working outta the home is dependent on that partner, too.

[00:27:39] But I think having that conversation to establish that mutual respect for contribution and interdependence is so key because without that, you're entering into a risky, vulnerable situation. And we certainly can, and of course I talk about it in the book, all the different thing, pieces of that. And then the last part, which I failed at, but I highly encourage other people to not feel that resigning. Resigning gracefully. It's not just like a tantrum. Yeah. I did not,

[00:28:10] Neha: Yes.

[00:28:27] Neha: Yeah. So I feel like when you're preparing right, you've, mentally wrapped your head around, this is a chapter you financially planned. Whether it was a financial no-brainer or not, you feel safe and protected, then you go to resign. And the ideal resignation is what I call in the loop or not. I'd call organizational behavior in the loop resignation, right? Which is you're keeping your manager in the loop; you are preparing with them. I think this is also a great idea for women who aren't necessarily committed to fully pausing to consider. This is the moment where you are working with your manager and saying, I really, am I trying to optimize for less stress or more time with my child? And maybe that means I'm gonna consider what my other options are? Is it going part-time? Is it mapping my school, my workday to the school day?

[00:29:46] If you still wanna pause, then you know, the in the loop model would be keeping your manager and anyone else related to the decision abreast so that it's not like I'm dropping in and saying, I'm giving you my two weeks. They're bought into the process and then you're essentially networking on your way out because what that meaning you're having coffee is with everyone from the executive assistant that you loved to, someone in another department that you really enjoyed getting to know,

[00:30:18] Neha: Because they are your bridge back. They are the way in which if you choose to return to that particular industry, then you're essentially able to stay, using those warm connections. And I think it, in another way, also dignifies the time you've spent there. it acknowledges that you've built this incredible network of relationships that belong to you. They don't belong to Google. If you're leaving Google, they belong to you.

[00:31:32] But they're in a lesser role. And it might be industry to industry, I don't know. but I think that's really valuable advice that you just shared about exit meetings or just relationship growing meetings before you're doing the thing. Yeah. Do you, what do you think about that in terms of industry? Do you think that there are ways to combat that?

[00:32:57] And it's not to say don't fully, don't, absolutely not, you should never pause in finance. It's to say that there are certain industries that are more impacted than others. What's interesting is I always thought medicine was historically very challenging, like physicians. I was down in Charlottesville, Virginia, and there was a woman who worked at the, the hospital down in Richmond and she had, she said at the beginning of the year,they will ask you, what percent effort do you wanna be operating at?

[00:34:24] Lindsay: Yeah. You haven't completely lost. It's not, it is easy for someone to see, oh, this person has kept up. Or is, it's not that big of a move to see that person. It's funny, too, because I think probably part of just leaning into this is, leaving your ego at the door a little bit. And what I mean by that, in my own experience, when I think back, sometimes people can't help themselves in the words that they use.

[00:35:39] And I think this makes me think about that too, a lot. But I love the example of thinking about if you're on the verge of a two day work week or that example you just gave of staying in the loop. I think that's great. And I also love the part in your book talking about during a pause, the mom connections. And just about the importance of that. What did you learn when you really went there and really started looking at just the relationships and what that means?

[00:36:50] So I'll use my own example, right? When you step into a career pause and you have been on a trajectory for so long, you are going to feel lost for a second. You're gonna feel like, wait a second, someone told me. What success looked like before it, and that was what I needed to get done to get that salary bump or that promotion.

[00:38:01] What are you working on? Because it's gonna reveal to you what your truest goals are. And then you can have three buckets, professional, personal, and family goals, right? And, professionals could be meeting a mom friend in a different industry every month. And that's what I did for a period, because motherhood, once you've gotten past those goals, you start thinking, where do I find those small, measurable metrics of success that move me forward? It's really available to you, right? Like that professional exploration. That exploration. It can happen on the playgrounds, it can happen on play spaces. It starts with, "Oh, I love your diaper bag, or I love your, what pediatrician do you see? And the next thing you're like, oh, I love that role.

[00:39:41] That is not a small goal, but like it could be small, have a silly household. I'm gonna have a dance party every Monday. Or if it's professional, it could be I just stay open to other opportunities that are coming up or when you're ready to return to work, those mom friends are actually some of your best networks to lean on, to return to.

[00:40:45] I was going to take 12 weeks. And they said, would you come back early, at 10 weeks? Because we have the, Indy 500 is an event that I had covered. And they said we would love for you to do it and then we'll let you have the remaining time and then come back to your studio job. And I. I was nervous at first, but I knew I loved covering that event. And after I talked to other moms who had done it, who were working on it, and got the lay of the land on how to do it... I was nervous about leaving my son for the first time because I just didn't know how I was gonna feel. I was just so in love with this new baby. And I, anyway, I really discovered about myself that, whoa, when I'm in the thing and I'm traveling to this live event, it exposed to me a different side of maybe what I had done for a living that I realized, oh, this is the part of it that really drives me.

[00:42:14] And for me that's something that even if it ends up that I'm doing it with however much time in between that now is oh, that's the thing that it's worth it for me to miss the time. I don't know how much that makes sense, but I just think that's also a tool is to really understand what you would spend time away from your family for,

[00:43:20] She had an iPhone notes app open. And she would just write down bullets of things that sparked her interest or conversation, podcasts she would listen to that made her like research more or things she just felt proud of, like things she felt happy and in flow, like what you're describing. And she wrote down, one of those bullets happened to be that she had reorganized her son's bus route because he wasn't getting picked up and like she had felt really fulfilled. She felt really proud that she had managed to do this. It was just a small thing and kind of got buried in the list. And then when she was looking to return about, and I always say like when you're looking to return, start planning like a year ahead of time. As soon as you feel that little nudge.

[00:44:43] Like top three. And I think it's because our bar is so high. So I think if we have this ability during this time to really not only move ourselves forward in sort of those deep goals that we maybe had put on the shelf and like those small ways that we hadn't grown for a long time, but then also meet women we may have never gotten a chance to meet with and then explore in small ways things that light us up so that when and if we're returning in a way that feels really meaningful.

[00:45:41] And that also makes me think about, like your upbringing. You think about it, I'm just genuinely curious, too, after doing some work on this myself, like what, how, the way that I was raised, I had an extremely loving family, and my mom was a teacher and my father was a journalist. But just how does the way that you were raised and what you saw impact you? And it's funny because my mom was always, I, she always worked except for when she took two years off. When she tells me all the time that I guilted her out, and she took two years off. But my mom also always felt like she was just super present with me. Like I didn't know any different. And she was also always doing these things, like making these big Halloween decorations and putting them on the front steps and doing scavenger hunts with us.

[00:47:18] Neha: We as a culture, shy away from money, it feels like one of those icky topics, right? But when we actually open it up between ourselves… My husband really taught me to do this, because I did not love Google Spreadsheet or Excel. That was just wasn't my love language and I'm not our, like annual meetings are, they're not Roman, they, I would never say spreadsheets are romantic, but I will tell you that we do, we have instituted this practice and I talk about it in the book and, share templates to do this, but

[00:47:56] Neha: I think his love language is planning together. Okay.

[00:48:03] Neha: I think he really loves to see our life laid out in a way that makes sense. And to know that we're both bought in. And I think his love language is time. He really loves time. And forcing me to sit next to him and look at that spreadsheet is time. And in the beginning it did feel like forcing. And we did it, to his credit, even before we had kids. And I think, what that allowed us to do right away as soon as we got married was to think of ourselves as an organization, right? Like an organization that was joint and it was a household and we were gonna run it in a way that we treat our businesses in our. With so much respect, we were gonna do that at home. And so to this day, we still have a January meeting and basically we will look at, this is the income in, and then this is the, these are the budget categories that we have spent against in the year past.

[00:49:58] You're going in with that. So the money isn't gonna come from like your pool over here, and now you're gonna be cutting your own hair in the corner, right? That isn't gonna happen. What's happening... We use the example of there's a woman in, or a family who moved from the Bay Area to Virginia Beach, right? Because they realized it was worth it to them and it was gonna take a big lifestyle change. Like the cost of living in the Bay was obviously very different from Virginia. For another couple in Denver, it was just moving money off of travel and dining out. So you're moving things together a lot for it.

[00:51:25] Lindsay: So what is that? Is it an actual contract?

[00:51:55] Lindsay: Awesome. Wow. Okay.

[00:52:10] Lindsay: I love that. How do you kick off the meetings?

[00:53:04] Lindsay: I think that's such good advice. All right. I wanna get to a couple questions that people have, have sent in because I know that time is very important. So Kelly asked, "What if after you take your pause, the workforce is so changed that your place is no longer there? Like your role, your job, what you did was no longer there."

[00:54:04] Like you're, you might be listening to a podcast on the way to pick up and learn about developments. I actually learned more about marketing when I was outside, of course, because I was actually keeping a pulse. Online certifications are great, whether that be masterclass or industry specific.

[00:55:10] Lindsay: Okay. Also, someone said, "When is it too late to come back? I'm 49. My industry is young, media ad sales, which is similar, but that's also, more of an age thing at that point."

[00:56:19] Lindsay: Wow. Okay. Neha, before we wrap, what, tell us where we can find more of this. The power pause and what you're working towards. You've created such a powerful program, but what else? What's next? And I shouldn't say what's next because...

[00:56:40] Lindsay: I know...

[00:57:00] So I will continue to do a lot of that. You'll see a lot of that mindset reef, shifting, narrative shifting on our Instagram and socials. You can follow me on Neha Ruch at under, at, on Instagram. Or you can come get a load of free resources, which we're constantly building, whether that be a library, whether that be mother classes for women to stay engaged with new ways to learn, our flex jobs board, so that women have access to those, opportunities to continue to, participate in the workforce on some level. You can find that all at thepowerpause.com.

[00:58:27] Neha: Yeah. Anecdotally, so we don't have the numbers. I can tell you that 90% of women keep themselves connected and while they're on pause, meaning that they're exploring something, they're cultivating new interests, new hobbies, they're volunteering. So they're dabbling in all those ways in which lend to new concepts coming out of that. Anecdotally, I would say if I were the gray, our audience is essentially made up of 50% fully on pause, and 50% in what we call the gray area, where they have shifted into something they can do on their own terms, right? And that is their really exciting piece, which is that they're, when women are shifting back, they're trying to construct ways in which to contribute and do work of meaning in ways that work for them.

[00:59:18] Neha: I'm very messy. I cannot eat a meal without...

[00:59:23] Neha: Yeah. Yeah. Little known fact. I read the ending of a show before I watch it so that I don't feel too stressed. The world is stressful enough. You don't need friends and neighbors in succession keeping you up at night, which it does if I don't read the ending. and. I took a year off between high school and college and I hiked in the Himalayas, which again, was unbelievable. If you look at me, I'm not a hiker. I don't know what I was thinking.

[00:59:55] Neha: It was great. To bring this full circle, it was like the first time I went to a train stop to surround myself with interesting people and figure out what came next.

[01:00:19] Neha: I can't wait. Good work. Work with you. Thank you.

[01:00:59] I'm a huge believer in Neha's work and I really encourage you guys to check out her platform, Mother Untitled, and of course to read The Power Pause, and look, even if you're in the midst of your career and you're someone who has never even considered taking a break, just having your eyes, I think open to this and to also like just the mental mind warp for folks when they're faced with a decision of Hey, what's going on? What are you doing? Maybe it just brings a little bit of understanding to everybody out there for these conversations. Be sure, TNOTYers, to tune in every Thursday to hear new episodes.