Marianne Hickman on The Mompreneur Model with Dori DeCarlo

December 5, 2025·33 min·2 clips

Marianne Hickman describes pulling a suicidal teen onstage and how her words changed his life.

Dori starts with the old suspicion. She names the idea that mompreneurs and women building from home are only dabbling between other duties. Marianne answers from lived experience, with a grateful, plainspoken tone as she talks about moving work around so she can take her grandkids to the park. Grandparent love still catches her off guard. That tenderness opens into the part of the conversation with teeth: balance keeps failing working mothers because it asks for something life rarely gives. Balance sounds fair, but it assumes every part of life should weigh the same all the time. Marianne prefers harmony. Her example is small, late, and familiar. A late-night conversation with her nineteen-year-old daughter became the most important thing in front of her. Sleep waited. Business waited. Even time with her husband moved aside because that relationship needed her then. That is the model she is talking about. Work, marriage, parenting, and extended family do not line up like a chart you can fix with enough discipline. They have rhythm. Sometimes one part is loud, sometimes another drops back, and sometimes the whole thing goes out of tune. The business advice here is personal, but not soft. Marianne is not asking women to give up ambition. She is asking them to stop judging a full life by whether every responsibility gets the same share. Some days lean toward family. Other days lean toward work. The better question is whether the whole arrangement still feels livable.

As heard by us

A grounded argument for harmony over balance, centered on women’s work, home life, and family responsibilities.

This episode makes a plain, useful case for women who build businesses from home and deserve to be taken seriously. Dori DiCarlo treats mompreneurs and businesswomen as sharp, capable people, not side notes, and that gives the conversation some weight without making it feel…

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Why you'd press play

For the listener tired of pretending balance is the goal.

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