Last week we celebrated the release of our 50th episode of The Juggle Podcast!  

In the episode itself we reflected on what we’ve achieved over 50 episodes (more on that below) and we shared the voices of some of our listeners who kindly sent us their audio snippets telling us what being a working mum means to them. Listen to what they have to say here, no doubt you will relate to a lot of their comments. 

So, back to 50 episodes! We made a commitment with each other to celebrate our wins on this journey and that is exactly what we did last week. We held a long lunch with 60 of our listeners and supporters, shared bubbles, food, conversation and laughter and listened to the wise insights from three of our past podcast guests in a panel discussion.  

Celebrating successes 

We started The Juggle Podcast almost one year ago with two main goals: 

• To educate and inspire others – to prove that it is possible to have a satisfying career and a fulfilling family life – we don’t have to choose!  
• To build a community of likeminded women juggling career and family. We all know the importance of support networks and we both felt that there was a real need for support, particularly for women who are managing careers with demands that follow them outside the 9-5 work day. 

In this time we have: 

• Released 50 episodes of The Juggle Podcast!  
• Built an online community of over 550 women  
• Interviewed some wonderful guests 
• Met and made friends with many of our listeners 
• Presented and provided consulting services to employers to help them learn how to better support their employees  

The panel  

As you well know, there are lots of components that go into a good career/life juggle and we wanted a representation of a range of these on our panel.  

We were joined by: 

•  Catriona Mcleod, director of Cullen Mcleod Lawyers, sharing a business owner and employer’s perspective on the juggle;
• Katrina (Kat) Alilovic, our resident psychologist; and  
• Tim Hammond, a former Federal MP who joined us on the podcast and openly discussed his decision to resign from Federal Politics to put his family first; 

for a candid discussion of all the things that comprise “the juggle”. 

Some of the key takeaways include: 

• How to work out your own values and set about living a life that is in accordance with them 
• The importance of support from employers for those who are doing the juggle, but the benefits aren’t just one-sided. There is a clear business case for employers supporting their employees through things such as paid parental leave, flexible work and formal and informal support mechanisms for parents in the workplace 
• The need for fathers to “turn up”, but more than that, the need to get more men involved in these conversations and how we can encourage dads to work flexibly and take on more of the family responsibilities. “The juggle” is not solely an issue for women.  
• Time! Although we had a whole section of the discussion dedicated to talking about time, it infiltrated almost every comment in one way or another.  How we manage our time is one of the most important parts of managing the juggle.  

If you couldn’t make it to the event (we sold out! Make sure you get in quickly next time!), don’t worry – we recorded the panel for you and will release the fantastic discussion on the podcast soon.  

The best is yet to come! 

It has been a fantastic year, but we’re far from done yet!  

We’ve taken the words of wisdom from some of our past guests and used them to create mantra cards for you to pin up or send to your friends when they need a little boost from time to time. We’ll be selling these on our website very soon, so keep an eye out! 

As you know, we’re writing a book about Managing The Juggle which we plan to release at the end of the year. You can register your interest in the book here and we will notify you of any updates.  We shared a sneak preview of the book’s main topics at the lunch, but if you missed out you’ll have to wait a little longer before we share those here.  

We also have plans to bring you some more fantastic guests, great sponsorship deals and other formal and informal events throughout the year.  

Some thank you’s 

Of course, none of this would be possible without support, so a huge thank you to RSM, especially to Nadine Marke, for hosting our lunch and to LawCPD for your generous contribution to our lunch and for your continued support of our podcast.  

Here’s to the next 50 (and many more!) episodes!