9 Powerful Podcasts to Inspire Growth During Your Career Break
Our favorite podcasts about career breaks and finding inspiration, insight, and actionable advice to guide you in your time away from the paid workforce.
So you have decided to press pause on your career. No matter your reasons—whether you’re attempting to save on exorbitant childcare costs or relish the fleeting baby and toddler years—taking a career break doesn’t mean you’ve put your ambitions and personal growth on hold.
Quite the contrary. Core to the Mother Untitled mission, a career pause is often a springboard to your life’s next chapter. It’s full of potential. It’s far from stagnation. And while stay-at-home mothers don’t have much down time to speak of, tuning into a podcast can be a simple, low-lift way to spark inspiration, fuel self-growth, and discover where your path leads next.
Of course, there are podcasts aplenty. But we’ve compiled a list of our favorites—podcasts about career breaks, side hustles turned full-time jobs, stay-at-home moms creating art in the margins of family life, and more.
9 Podcasts About Career Breaks & Making the Most of Them
1. Side Hustle Pro
In this conversation series, Nicaila Matthews Okome shines the spotlight on fellow Black female entrepreneurs, coaxing each into sharing her career journey from small side hustle to successful business. With new episodes dropping weekly, Side Hustle Pro delivers practical advice and detailed strategies for starting a side hustle and scaling it into something that provides meaningful income for families.
2. The Second Life
Hillary Kerr, the founder of Who What Wear, speaks to a range of people, from Victoria Beckham to Grace Bonney to Aya Kanai, on how their career paths lead them to where they are now. For any at-home parent balancing family and professional or creative pursuits, this is an excellent listen—and one that offers incredible insight on how to bring ideas to fruition and trust the process.
3. The Purpose Show
With The Purpose Show, host Allie Casazza is on a mission to change our views on modern motherhood from one of helpless martyrdom to another that centers agency and empowerment. In each episode of The Purpose Show, Allie guides listeners toward a version of motherhood that focuses on our own enjoyment and personal fulfillment.
4. No One is Coming to Save Us
Seasoned journalist and ABC News correspondent Gloria Riviera tackles the topics that matter most to women and families, from the child care crisis to reproductive care to early childhood education and beyond. For anyone looking to get more involved in creating social change and advocating for families, Gloria and the NOICTSU podcast offer a blueprint for diving in during the free moments of motherhood. Don’t miss this episode with writer Angela Garbes entitled Mothers Are Essential Workers, Too.
5. Writer Mother Monster
Host Lara Ehrlich invites fellow writer-mothers into conversation to help dismantle the idea that women can have it all—family, career, and personal pursuits—if they just lean in hard enough. With a diverse guest list that features episodes with Dorothy Allison, Chaya Bhuvaneswar, Rachel Yoder, and many more, Writer Mother Monster is generous on wisdom and practical advice for making room for your creative self alongside the full days of parenthood. Not a writer? The advice you’ll find is applicable to creatives of all kinds!
6. More Than One Thing
Host Athena Calderone is fascinated with non-linear career paths, starting with her own, from at-home parent to design and lifestyle expert. Through interviews, Athena examines the career paths of multi-dimensional women. Her conversations offer listeners permission to follow their instincts and take a leap into their next chapter.
7. How to Curate Your Life
In an effort to live a life that’s joyful and balanced, entrepreneur Lizzie Evans hosts conversations with creative women to pick their brains on how they stay inspired and creating. While this podcast is no longer in production, there are plenty of episodes available. You’ll find real-life strategies for being productive, nurturing your creativity, promoting your work, and more.
8. Cool Moms
A complement to the Cool Moms community, this podcast, hosted by artist Elise Peterson, features in-depth interviews with mothers who’ve learned how to carve out time for their passions while also raising the next generation.
9. The Daily Creative
Short on time? The Daily Creative podcast is the perfect pick for you. In mini episodes that range from 2 to 5 minutes, host Todd Henry—author of The Daily Creative book—manages to squeeze in research-backed insight on nurturing your creative side in order to better serve you and your career goals.
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