She's That Founder: Business Strategy and Time Management for Impactful Female Leaders

062 | Business, Motherhood, and Mental Health with Dr. Catherine Birndorf

• Dawn Andrews • Season 1 • Episode 62

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What happens when a successful entrepreneur, fierce advocate for women’s health, and accidental CEO takes the helm of a game-changing business? 

In this episode, Dr. Catherine Birndorf, founder of The Motherhood Center, shares the challenges of scaling a business in the healthcare industry while staying true to her mission.

If you think running a business is tough, wait until you hear how she’s reshaping the maternal mental health landscape, one bold decision at a time. From navigating the complex realities of entrepreneurship to creating a sanctuary for women struggling with perinatal mental health, her story is full of insights for business owners who are ready to step up as visionary leaders.

This episode is a must-listen for any woman ready to own her mission, tackle challenges head-on, and scale her business while making a lasting impact.


In this episode, you’ll …

  • Learn how to stay focused and resilient during the toughest phases of business growth.
  • Discover how to scale your business while staying true to your core mission.
  • Get actionable advice on balancing the demands of leadership with personal well-being
  • Learn how building a strong support network—both professionally and personally—can accelerate your business success .


This episode at a glance:

[3:30] - Dr. Birndorf introduces her journey into reproductive psychiatry and founding The Motherhood Center.

[32:25] - How female founders can build resilience and mental health support while managing the stress of building a business.

[45:55] - The transition from being a practicing psychiatrist to stepping fully into the CEO role, and the lessons Dr. Birndorf learned along the way.

[1:10:30] - Dr. Birndorf shares her personal self-care strategies, including therapy, meditation, and family time, to maintain balance.


Resources and Links mentioned in this episode


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More about the “My Good Woman” podcast

My Good Woman is a podcast for new and future female leaders, hosted by me, Dawn Andrews, founder of Free Range Thinking, "My Good Woman" is for new and aspiring female leaders. Join me each week for candid chats with trailblazing women breaking barriers and leading impactful businesses. We dive into what drives them and share practical tips to help you streamline

Want to increase revenue and impact? Listen to “My Good Woman” for insights on business strategy and female leadership to scale your business. Each episode offers advice on effective communication, team building, and management. Learn to master routines and systems to boost productivity and prevent burnout. Our delegation tips and business consulting will advance your executive leadership skills and presence.

My Good Woman
Ep. 62 | Business, Motherhood, and Mental Health with Dr. Catherine Birndorf


Catherine Birndorf: I've always been on a mission apparently, just becoming a doctor was a way to aid me in my mission to help women make choices, understand themselves to be able to make the best decisions they can for themselves 

Dawn Andrews: Welcome to the My Good Woman podcast where we help female founders break past plateaus and get to the next level of business growth by refining their strategy building systems and streamlining operations. 

I'm Dawn Andrews, the founder and CEO of free range thinking business strategy consulting. Join me each week for candid conversations, with culture, shifting glass ceiling busting trailblazing women who are leading impactful enterprises and grab their strategies to help your business reach extraordinary levels of growth.

In this episode, we'll talk about how to avoid burnout while you're scaling your business and maintain the energy to innovate by prioritizing self-care and setting boundaries, even when the odds are stacked against you. We'll also go into the truth behind the entrepreneurial bliss smith and what it really takes to build a mission driven business that stands out in a crowded industry. And finally we'll give you three proven strategies for overcoming the pressure of delegating tasks and staying resilient, especially when you're balancing business growth with personal fulfillment.

Enjoy my conversation with the absolutely kick ass doctor, Catherine Birndorf. Dr. Catherine Birndorf, 

Catherine Birndorf: Thank you for having me. Very excited to be with one of my favorite, most entrepreneurial, interesting, creative women.

Dawn Andrews: Yay. I'm like, you just made my day. That's excellent. I'm going to take that recording and turn it into a clip and just like play it for myself when I get up in the morning. 

There are so many things like, you know, I have the pleasure of working with you. So I get to ask you lots of things and we've been in lots of different conversations, but I'm excited about this format today because I get to leverage both sides of you a little bit, which is the founder CEO business side of you and get to share and pull some of the wisdom that you have for female founders. 

And some of the vulnerability that you have for female founders. And then I also get to tap into the doctor side of you, which doesn't happen very often because we're usually talking business. So, are you down for that? Does that sound fun?

Catherine Birndorf: Yeah, here for all of it. No holds barred. Whatever you want to ask.

Dawn Andrews: Okay. Well, let's just start with a little bit of background for the listeners. Obviously I know that you are Dr. Katherine Birndorf, the founder of the Motherhood Center of New York, but will you share a little bit about your background and about the Motherhood Center?

Catherine Birndorf: I most fundamentally, in addition to being a woman, a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, I am a doctor, which is very defining for who I am and how I function in the world. I like to think of myself a helper, a healer and I've always been interested in women's health and reproductive rights.

And got to a field, a little known field back when I was in med school in the nineties called, um, reproductive psychiatry. So I regular old psychiatry, but I didn't know if I wanted to be an OBGYN or a psychiatrist. So I found a way to do both because I like to hedge it really just speaks to exactly my personality, right?

There are a lot of ways to get to women's health. And I got there through talking and listening and helping through sort of psychiatric and psychological, experiences and treatment, but it's all along the reproductive spectrum. We say from menses to menopause, so PMS, PMDD. erinatal, you know, gyne cancers, perinatal, you know, before, during and after pregnancy, and then perimenopause. 

So that's like 13, 14 to 55, 60. That spectrum, which is pretty much, the reproductive spectrum. And most women are in those years, childbearing years. and I do all the psychiatric issues related to those phases of life. Does that make sense?

Dawn Andrews: Yeah, it does. And it's so interesting. I mean, this is a little bit of a sidebar from what I have, planned for us. But, there's so much conversation right now around the world of menopause. Finally everybody's discovered that it actually is something and is happening and that it is happening for women, but it sounds like in your training journey that you had the opportunity to get some of that training and to be in a deeper conversation about it. Was that unique to where you were or?

Catherine Birndorf: It's funny you should ask. There, there's still not that much on-

Dawn Andrews:  And I say that as I'm literally having a hot flash. So, okay, go ahead.

Catherine Birndorf:  So yeah, there hasn't been a lot about any of this. So let's just be clear . I think as the boomers and the Gen Xers got to menopause, and there were so many of us, right?

We finally got it on the map, but it's always been happening, right? We just didn't have the research or the, people weren't looking into it. It wasn't part of the patriarchy, same with PMS and PMDD and, perinatal stuff too. None of this was on the map and things have come online and bits and fits and starts.

And so I think right now menopause is having its moment, which is cool. Because we we can talk about that all day long, that is not what the motherhood center is. 

So while I learned all about the psychological and psychiatric implications of these phases of a female's life, I've always been in academic medicine. I trained in New York City, at New York Presbyterian Hospital, at Cornell, I was always like, why aren't we doing this? 

Bitching and moaning and sort of saying like, well, no, one's talking about this and they were like, so I was always pushing, pushing the envelope.

When I started doing this in the nineties, very few people were doing this. It existed at a few little pockets in the country. One of which was in LA. Very cool woman there at UCLA who started doing this. There were people, but there weren't many. it was like, how do I get my, and I guess this speaks to me as a founder,

I'm going to find it and figure out how to do it you know, I'm on a mission.

I've always been on a mission apparently, just becoming a doctor was a way to aid me in my mission to help women make choices, understand themselves to be able to make the best decisions they can for themselves. 

I mean, that's how I doctor, and I, was going to do it through reproductive rights and OBGYN and help women have choices. But I realized that for a number of reasons went a slightly different direction, but I do the same thing. Cause what I was doing in the nineties and the early two thousands was helping women decide whether or not to take medication before, during and after pregnancy. 

And that was when everyone's like, what do you mean? Pregnancy is protective. Pregnant women should be blissful and it's easy. And. Who are you? Who has a problem? Right? We were so, I don't know who bought that?

Dawn Andrews: Oh, I did. totally did. And let me tell you, That was an interesting upending of expectations. 

Catherine Birndorf: But like the medical field was pushing it too. Like we were pushers of this bliss myth crap. And I feel like when I was doing this, like I knew something wasn't right, maybe it had to do with my own, having a kid in 98 and I was like, what? What? What happened? What happened to me? -

I was so much more competent at work. I was like, can I just give this baby like someone else can help me? And I'll go back to taking call every night. Like whatever it was I had to do, I was good at it. I got walloped and I had no idea. I was on this mission and just that intensified my mission, but nobody was talking about it.

Postpartum was like, people were like, why are you saying those bad words? Why are you trying to say women have problems in and around pregnancy? I'm like, cause they do, but I would go see OBGYNs. I'd go talk to them. They'd be like, We don't have any, of that, my own pediatrician said to me, don't have any women on meds and no.

I said, have you ever asked? Well, I guess you're right. No, I haven't. And I was like, this is my, this is my life's work. Like was always like fired up about this stuff .

Dawn Andrews: Yeah, it's easy to get fired up- I mean, for every woman out there listening, it's very easy to get fired up about this stuff. For men listening, maybe not so much, and it speaks to the world that we've been living in and that we're starting to change and that is starting to shift, which I'm very thankful for, but, I mean, okay, sidebar, we're only going to spend like two minutes on this, but Arizona,

Catherine Birndorf: Well, you want, I mean, what's to say disaster. 

Dawn Andrews: Put your psychiatrist hat on for a second. Like, what do you think is going on in the thinking or the general, you know, the legislative thinking that that is the result?

Catherine Birndorf: I can't speak to the legislative thinking cause I can't begin to understand it. The only thing I know is I think of, I mean, I think of it from a different perspective. I think of reproduction and sex and sexuality and being a woman as threatening. I think it's a threat to the world order, to patriarchy.

And so I think because of the capacity, women aren't studied, we didn't know what happened. The reason there wasn't this field was because we weren't looking at it, studying it. Oh, you go, you don't worry your pretty little head about it. You go sit in the corner, barefoot in the kitchen, and pregnant and just do your thing and we'll take care of you, the going back to just another era, right? 

Dawn Andrews: And so far back, not just back, like so far back.

Catherine Birndorf: Without autonomy? I mean, we are second class citizens ,like at best and I can only think of it as like with the Dobbs decision and when Roe was overturned, all I thought to myself was, I said to my husband, can you see me? I think I'm invisible. I don't think I'm here anymore. 

The feeling of having lost bodily autonomy and integrity. And what is different? The only thing that's different is the reproductive capacity and the hormones that go with that. We're kind of this more the same before one gets her period and after one stops having their period in those reproductive years, I mean, men can't do that. That's where I see the threat.

Men don't have that capacity and what they, what you don't have and you don't understand and you don't know is problematic. So we don't study it. We don't talk about it. We can't think about it and let's just lock it up.

Dawn Andrews: Well I'm having like a physics moment now thinking about it too with that decision because it's incredibly enraging and disheartening, but I also think about the, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. So if this is the level of reaction to what you're describing, like the fear of what the capacity of what we're capable of as women, then we must be getting somewhere.

And maybe that's a little bit of magical thinking, but I'm just trying to make a moment for myself out of this moment that has me still want to stand up and keep fighting and not just be so either disgusted or disappointed or depressed that I don't do anything about it.

Catherine Birndorf: No, I think there's nothing to do but fight. And to keep showing up and to keep representing and to keep saying, this is unacceptable and keep finding ways just to fight the fight and when, and where we can't, we help in other ways, you know. 

In my next chapter of life, once I finish whatever chapter I always said, I'll go back. I'll finally learn how to do, whether they're medical or surgical abortion procedures, I hope that I can go back and I can do my duty to be able to help women and, bring those services or bring people to those services because that's our choice.

Like who is anyone to say otherwise? Right now I'm doing it through psychiatric means and medications and opportunities and, allowing women to be well, so that they should be able to become mothers should they choose or not. 

But, there's just, that fight is just worse and worse. And, and we may be called upon as psychiatrists, if they even say, right now, it doesn't matter if you're going to kill yourself, right, that doesn't even matter , that doesn't count, that's okay it doesn't matter that I can write that and say that and give you a psychiatric evaluation. That's not a reason not to continue a pregnancy. Maybe we should get off the subject because I lose my shit. I don't know if I can say that on-

Dawn Andrews: You can say that on the podcast. We have a special dispensation to be able to use the words that we want to use because we also have that choice, or we still have that choice as far as I know, maybe not in Arizona. I don't know. Okay, so pivoting back to the chapter that you're in, you are the founder of the Motherhood Center, and it is a place where women who are experiencing mental health related conditions during their pregnancy process can receive care. I feel like I'm, sort of short cutting that a little bit is that, do you feel like that's covers it?

Catherine Birndorf: That's a great way to say it. Another way to say it is, women who are struggling with perinatal. So, before, during and after pregnancy related anxiety or mood disorders. Huge wastebasket term, can come for treatment and care, and support and education and advocacy at, or, through the motherhood center. 

Dawn Andrews: And you have the, outpatient services, like being able to see your therapist, but a therapist that is, has the specialty in this conversation and this set of health concerns. And then you also have your partial hospital program where people can be inpatient. During this time as -


Catherine Birndorf: They're outpatients. Well, they're quote inpatient. They come for the day. So they go home. We don't have an overnight. We're not a residential or an inpatient actual facility, but we have a state license to be able to have the highest level of care outside of a hospital. Provide that level of care and have insurance recognize us so that we can get people reimbursed.

So we're doing something that we are a one of a kind. Nobody else is doing this. Nobody else is stupid enough to try something like this. As I've told you many times, Dawn, this was a big dream and a big risk and, had a lot of people who believed in it and who thought it could happen.

I certainly did because I was doing this as a regular old, outpatient type doctor. But I was treating women who were really sick, who needed to be spoken to or, in sessions more than a few times a week and check in on the weekends. 

And how are you doing with the baby and what's happening? And are you able to, walk outside? Are you too scared or too anxious? Or are you so depressed that you can't even touch the baby? How's your attachment? How's your bonding? Like all these things the family's helping. And it was too much. And it was like, let's get going. Let's create a place. where we can really help these women get the acute treatment, get stabilized and then get healed. 

It goes into a healing process. so what happens is when someone has needs a higher level of care, they're either, maybe they were hospitalized, right? So they're stepping down from the hospital or they're stepping up because outpatient care wasn't cutting it.

Then they come to us in our day hospital. That is our center of the motherhood center. We have this level of care that there was this big abyss between outpatient and inpatient. Everyone thinks it's inpatient, but really we don't stay overnight. 

So it's five hours a day, five days a week. They come at 10, they leave at three. It's mostly group based. It's a community. They come into this beautiful center. That's decidedly not in the hospital. I did not choose to affiliate with any of the hospitals where I have spent my time. We wanted to do it agnostically so that, you know, New York City is pretty turfed out.

We were like, we want to be open to everyone and make sure that we weren't so affiliated that people from this hospital wouldn't come from that hospital . We exist in Midtown Manhattan, in a nondescript office building that we have- 

Dawn Andrews: Beautiful. I have been there it is like I want to hang out there all day it's really a peaceful lovely excellent setting to be able to get into the conversations that you need to be in to heal yourself. It's really wonderful.

Catherine Birndorf: Thank you, Dawn. It's like people walk in and they say, they just breathe. They can take a deep breath. They can exhale. They just feel like Wow. I'm okay. I'm safe. That's a haven. It's a urban Zen type setting, and they are able to just surrender into being cared for so that they can get better.

And it doesn't look like a hospital in any way. We've got our offices, we've got our kitchen. Everyone can help themselves to tea and coffee. And we provide lunch and we really make it as, you know, homey as possible. And we have an onsite nursery. So people bring their babies, right now we have a baby who's four days old.

We had this mother when she was pregnant, she was struggling with OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, you know, people go, they deliver. Sometimes they come back because, we're still in the midst of treatment. we treat all different kinds of, you know, I talked about anxiety, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder.

We have women who are recovering from psychosis, which is a loss of touch with reality. We've got, depression. We've got a little bit of everything and, trauma. A lot of the women have struggled with trauma in their lives and birth itself can be a trauma. So we often have women who are struggling with PTSD , post traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder. I could keep whipping off all these acronyms, but probably not that useful. 

Dawn Andrews: I wanted to have an opportunity for people to hear out everything about this program, because as much as you are on CNN out in the world, making a difference with policy in Washington, like you guys are everywhere trying to make this happen and every pocket of ears that can hear about the existence of this program, both in if you need it yourself or someone you love or if, as it continues to grow and expand.

And that's, kind of where I want to take things next is to have you put on both your founder hat and your psychiatrist hat. Because as I was putting together our conversation today, I was thinking about, know, I'm a mother of two and I would say that launching, growing, and maintaining my business has been equal to, if not at times, more challenging than raising the two sons that I have.

Catherine Birndorf: 100  percent

Dawn Andrews: So I get to leverage you for both of those parts of your brain. Here's my first founder related question for you, given that you are a female founder and you are also in the mental health space, what are some of the coping mechanisms that you have used or you recommend that founders can use to maintain their mental health while dealing with the uncertainty, the setbacks, the intensity of the early stages, especially of building a business?

Catherine Birndorf: Girl, it's a little bit of do what I say, not what I do. What do I do? I find Dawn and I say, Dawn help me. But I'm also a big proponent of therapy. I believe that we need those things that support us, meditation, exercise, all those things that really support us being healthy, both physically and mentally.

But it is a third kid. You know, I, I started the motherhood center. when I was 48 or 49, it was a third, very late in life kid, right? My kids were already grown. My kids now are 22 and 25 I guess they were in high school at the time and they were like, wow, we have a new sibling and that sibling is the motherhood center.

They're like, where are you? You know, it was, it took over my life, as founding something does , and I had no idea. Like, I just knew I had to do something. So for me, it was just a drive to be able to provide something. I had a skill set that was going to help a need out there in the market, which I wasn't even calling a market back then.

I just knew women needed this help and that I could provide it. And it was like, I had to do it. I felt like someone's got to do it. I've got the energy and the excitement and the expertise and I'm going get my army together and we're going to go do it. But I didn't know how the hell to run a business .

I didn't know anything about anything . I just knew how to start programs. I'd started the program at Cornell in 2002. I'd started many different things , many different groups and organizations. But like, I didn't know how to start a business . 

Dawn Andrews: How did you address that part? Cause what's clear is the strong drive and mission. And then the clinical expertise to make that mission a possibility. But how did you fill the gap with the business part of it?

Catherine Birndorf: Well, I'm still filling it . Thank you very much.  I knew what I knew. most probably one of the best. I think one of my better qualities is I know what I don't know. And I'm not scared to look stupid. I'm not scared to ask questions .

I don't think it's because I went to Smith College where it was all women and we were sort of out there, pushed to ask and be and do and it was really so foundational for me. I'm not scared. I know I'm a smart enough person. So, if I have the question, probably somebody else does too.

I am very comfortable looking like a ding dong and surrounding myself with smart people . I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. And as you know, I do surround myself with some extremely smart people who are very opinionated . And that's how we get going, because I couldn't do this by myself. 

I, one certainly couldn't do it by myself. Two, I am not the smartest person in the room. Three,  I have a certain set of expertise that I stay in my lane on. And then I hire the help. I hire everything I can around me to make it good; to me, that's the key .

I had an original business partner, who, approached me, somebody who came from the business world, the, medical and business world, not a doctor. And I was a content, I was a subject matter expert and he was going to be the business person who saw a niche in the market that I knew about. 

We sort of, we were very simpatico in many ways, but, that wasn't a true, like in your blood kind of mission for this person. And so when things got tough, there was no way, but onward and upward for me, I am not, I don't give up undaunted. And when I realized that, you have to know who your partner is. I would say, boy, that was a big mistake. Like, it's like another marriage. Oh, well, I didn't get that memo. 

Dawn Andrews: Amen to that. Well, okay, I could go off on that for a minute, but I'm going to, come back to that sort of ride or die with the cause for you. Like resilience is crucial for anybody that's launching a business or running a business. To face ups and downs of what's going on. And like you said, you're going into an undefined space.

You saw the need from a patient journey perspective, but from a business perspective, the larger medical community obviously hadn't recognized it for whatever reason. And, you know, as I know from our conversations, we're still lobbying for them to recognize it. Is there anything that you can share about how we as women can build and strengthen our resilience? What has worked for you, especially facing down some of the things that you're facing down.

Catherine Birndorf: I keep going back to this idea. Know what you know, know what you're good at and then find the people who can help you and don't be scared to ask. Go talk to everybody, pick everybody's brains, take everybody out for coffee. And I have to remember that too, because now that I'm in a different position, I have people coming to me all the time.

Can you mentor me? Can you talk to me? And I'm like, I have no time, but like, no way. Like it's, you give back, right? You have to help other people. You have to see what they're doing. I had people believe in me. They were like, you can do this. I know you can, whether it was through their expertise or their intellect or their money that they were putting behind me or their belief in my certainty that this had to be.

While we've been doing this all these years, and I'm sure we'll get to this question, but like, is it replicable? Can this exist outside of New York City? Is it scalable? Can we make it something, you know, is the world ready for it? I mean, I believe. The world is ready for it, desperately needs it but doesn't always know it. 

So we are constantly, educating and advocating for and speaking to, it's kind of a never ending journey. I kept thinking there was a there, there, but there's no, there, there. It doesn't end, along the way, the other thing, as you build up your resilience and you build up your arsenal and your army and your kitchen cabinet, you have to figure out how to take care of yourself.

Dawn Andrews: So what do you do? What do you like literally, what do you personally do to look after yourself?

Catherine Birndorf: I walk, I am a walker. I love to talk to my friends. Like I have certain things that I do that fill me up. I like to walk and talk to my friends. I like to be on the phone. I like to walk with them. I like to listen to a podcast. I like to listen to books on audio , like those things .

Like if I don't get to do that in a day. I feel like I, what happened today, right? I learned to meditate. I did a big, you know, the TM thing. I really love it. I feel guilty if I can't do it twice a day for 20 minutes. I'm like, okay, Kat, just do it for 10 minutes. You know, where can you find the time? So I find I have to modify certain things to get them into my life.

I religiously, I've been in therapy as long as I can remember, I find it to be like a vitamin, like a way to, be real with myself in a way with someone who knows me and sees me and calls me on my bullshit and who also supports me. that experience for me on a weekly basis is I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And then just being with my family, protecting family time, my kids are everything to me. And I got really lucky, I don't know, I guess Cheryl Sandberg, picking partners. I got really lucky with a partner. 

You know, we met in med school and I knew, I don't love it for sight sort of crap. But on the other hand, I knew the minute I met my husband of now almost 28 years that I was going to marry him. And he actually called his family and I called my family because we were both dating other people and we were like, uh, hello. Um, right. and, you know, 

Yes we have grown together, we have worked through a lot of stuff together, but we very much champion each other and he's in an interesting phase of his career as a chair of surgery at a bunch of hospitals and pushing himself and I'm pushing myself and then we come together and he's the best listener and can hear me and, talk to me about and help me piece through things.

But I also, you know, I've got you Dawn. I've got other people who support my journey in really trying to learn about business because the medicine piece, thankfully I can,I don't want to say it's easy, it's never easy, but that's what I did most of my life. What I do really kind of well. And that's where I'm in my flow and I feel nourished by but this was a very big turn, you know, big pivot .

Dawn Andrews: Yeah, talk to me about that, that's where you and I intersected. That's where we met. Was you, coming to the place where you wanted to step fully into the CEO, the business role after being fully in the clinical role? You're, you know, I mean, Catherine's here's the deal.

You're like, you're running a business in a space that has been undefined. It is singular. There are kind of pretenders to the throne or people that are nipping a little bit at your heels, I feel like in terms of this business model, but you still are, the pioneer there. It is a social justice issue.

So not only are you fighting upstream in a business conversation, but you're fighting upstream in a social, world community conversation, and you're learning how to be CEO of your company. What happened that you decided you wanted to take that on as opposed to other people might hire somebody to, be the operational CEO and then you can stay in your, your area of expertise. What had you decide that you wanted to own that space?

Catherine Birndorf: I used to call myself the accidental CEO because right, I didn't start as the CEO. I was the president, the medical director. I was the creating the programming. Those, I did things I knew how to do. I hired, I knew how to find the experts in the field and you had to train them. But when I split with my partner before we opened, but probably a year into opening and I saw the writing on the wall, I was like, I had no choice.

Would I have chosen that role? I didn't even know what it meant. I had to like, look it up. You know, I know how to learn, but I certainly don't know how to think like that. That's not how my brain works. My brain works very differently than, the operational business brain. So I knew I had to get help.

That's, how we've came to intersect. And, it has been the hardest thing, right? You, you always used to say to me, like, you're a doctor on one end, CEO on the other, and, one to one or one to many as you I had to keep moving along the trajectory, you know, where was I? And I think you very much helped me move along the trajectory. 

Get over the hump where I was half a doctor, half a CEO. Like I had to be a CEO who is a doctor. And I think I'm finally there, but it has taken me, I can't, I mean, I think people had to beat me over the head . It was very hard to give it up because I'm good at being a doctor and I know I'm not as good at being a CEO, but I, I am at this point in time, I don't think it will always be my job, but it is my job right now.

And I think that if we were to sell, I, you know, every day, every week, hi, we're, you know, writing to you from this venture place. We've had offers of money and, you know, do you want to sell? Do you want to do that? I mean, I have to like, can't even listen, right? We have to create this thing. It has to stand on its own. It has to be replicable, scalable, and be its own thing separate from me until I can walk away from it and it lives on. I'm here. So I guess that's helping out and I'm not going anywhere until that can happen.

Dawn Andrews: That's the foundation of being able to scale a business. Even if, it's like a really small personal, like one person shop, there has to be some way that you can have it live beyond you. I'm curious if there's a way of thinking or approaching things that you've noticed is different now that you've been more in the CEO role on the continuum versus the practitioner that like, I almost want to call you the creative, right?

Because when people start businesses or launch something, especially if it's service based, they're doing it because they love that service. They love the one to one connection and to be able to grow it. You have to shift into leaving some of the service behind or leaving it to other people and starting to be the CEO.

What are you noticing in your thinking when challenges come up, even in the day to day, that is different now that you're in the CEO space versus the practitioner space?

Catherine Birndorf: Well, first of all, I had to make a thousand million mistakes by behaving like a doctor and a practitioner with staff as opposed to patients . Cause I'm always, my lens is as a doctor , as a psychiatrist I'm looking at a million things on a lot of different levels, but that's not that useful.

I mean, it's useful to inform, but you don't get to behave that way. I don't get to say things to my colleagues or my those who report to me. Like I used to say to patients psychiatry is like you get to say the truth. You get to say what you see, what people are telling you, what you're, synthesizing and help people see their truth.

It's not my truth. It's their truth, but that's not what you get to do. That's not the job of somebody running a business. It's completely different. I mean you have helped me tremendously, you know, as have others really learn how to address, how to be with people differently. And I'm still working  on that . Like I find it very hard cause I will default to doctoring all day long.

It's constantly, shifting my, view and remembering that that there are many views, but I have to behave as the CEO, as the boss, which is not my favorite position . I'm collegial. I like to be friends with everybody. I like to, You know, I like people to get along. I like people to be happy in their jobs.

I like people to do their jobs. No one has to ask me twice, but I don't understand why I have to ask other people twice. I guess it's kind of like figuring out that, I can still be me, but I have to hold people. I have to be clear. I can still be creative, but I have to then talk to people about, help them understand what their jobs are and hold them accountable.

Like accountability is probably the biggest thing, which when you're being a doctor , you know, I hold my patients accountable, but they get to choose whether or not they take the medicine.

Dawn Andrews: Their paying you for it. They specifically engaged with you to be in a relationship they came with getting better as their agenda and you're the investment pathway and the clinical expertise to help that happen. Your employees are being paid by you to perform a function, but what you're describing is like that, you know, being able to speak truth to a patient is different than being able to speak truth to an employee. And though both, I think are very important, it's with a different intention and outcome in mind. So that is, great that you know that.

Catherine Birndorf: Oh, I know it. And I've screwed it up a million and one ways, but I've learned from all my many mistakes. I don't hold grudges. I forgive, I repair. I'm interested, you know, rupture repairs. We say, I will work on something. I will work with people. I will try again. I'm dogged. I am resilient if nothing else. 

Just keep trying. And so, you know, to your question, I think I've just decided that the mission was always bigger than me, but the mission is so important that I have to like, now my patient is the business, right?

The business is the baby. The business is, the person could be struggling if I'm not helping it. So everything I do, if I don't do right by the business, then I'm hurting the business, right? It's a huge frame shift for me. I don't know if it's worse for doctors who become business owner or who are business owners or

Dawn Andrews: No, I mean, I can tell you from all the different kinds of clients that I work with, like, anytime you're making that shift from the doer of the thing to the manager of other people's doing the thing, it's a mind shift for sure.

 It's a shift and it's not a set of skills that people are tapped into. Like this is not me advocating for people going to like management school or something before they started business. You to me, Catherine, are a, I think a graceful example actually of somebody being willing to just be direct, clear and vulnerable as you continue on your journey of growth into that CEO role. 

Like I said, you could certainly hire in and have somebody that's already good to go. But I think for your business, a critical part of the mission is if you're not on board for that, then it's not the right fit. And I think that you're the perfect person to do this and it just is going to be a bumpy ride as you up level.

Catherine Birndorf: I'm committed to up leveling, which is sad because , I mean, it's great. And it does make me have to give up the things that were my love forever, right? Seeing patients. And so I had to break up with patients. I've had to like every day, you know. People call the like they circle back, they're like, wait, you're not seeing patients so much anymore.

No, I can't, you know, it's so painful to me because I have such love really for those who I've treated over the years, such, affection and affinity. Again, they don't know anything about me so much, although I'm a little more public now because of this and other things.

But generally speaking, I was their therapist. I was their person and I was in their corner and I love being that person behind the scenes and really helping them be the best version of themselves. I didn't know how much I was giving up to do this. So it's been a huge loss . 

That's been an identity shift and a loss to have to give that up and move away from it. And I fought you and everybody else on it. Like how many patients, well, how many can I still see and do this? I mean, I still love seeing patients. I still have a handful that I see, you know, that relatively frequently . And I have more that I do, you know, medications for very infrequently. Really? I really should be doing none of it . And I know you'll yell at me later.

Dawn Andrews: There'll be no yelling, but I would shift the should because what I'm hearing is first of all, thank you for your sacrifice. Because in you letting your, you know, what gives you joy to see patients, you're creating the opportunity for far more women to be seen. You're creating the opportunity for us to think about women's health care and mental health care during this particular time in their lives differently. That's, the trade off, and I know you're down for it. 

Catherine Birndorf: It's taken me a while because I also think I can do all of it at the same time on one of those. 

Dawn Andrews: Ooh, girl, let's, let's, okay, founders out there. How many of you guys are, like, raising your hand right now? I think I could do all of it. Like, I count myself among them. So, finish that thought. I didn't mean to cut you off, but I just, like, it's so real. 

Catherine Birndorf: It's so real. I think, I can do it all at the same time. I've got big shoulders. I can handle it. I don't really need to sleep that much. I can run around like a nut. I can get it all done again. It's impossible. It's impossible. And I have to relearn that almost on a daily basis , but I'm doing much better with it.

Like I feel like I'm, I have to be quiet. I really have to stop, right? I'm not even talking as much when I walk anymore and I can not be busy in the week really enjoy my own company and my own quiet. And just piddle around and pick up some work, do a little of this, make something to eat for myself, you know, have dinner with my husband, talk about things as things are going on, or not, he's also super busy.

We're on our own in some ways more in a way. And then when we come together, it's like intentional, it's like the intentionality of it I am so precious now about my time. I am so careful with what I do I used to say yes to everything.

Dawn Andrews: I wanted to ask you about that, so we were talking about you launching, discovering this and, putting this whole business together as your, children were just starting to leave the nest kind of in that era and giving your whole self to it all the time to it.

Burnout is universal for entrepreneurs. It's going to happen. I hate that it, that I have to say it that way. I wish it wasn't true, but it shows up. I mean, it sounds like you found ways to mitigate it and that you're more intentional with your time than you might have been before. Do you feel yourself in that burnout space at all at this stage of the company? 

Catherine Birndorf: I mean, I've been in and out of it. I think when I push myself too hard, like Fridays, I think I'm burned out once a week, every Friday, I finished for Friday and I'm like, I can't speak. I actually can't have a conversation. I need to just sit with my mouth, not moving, you know, eating pizza in front of the TV, my husband's home, just chilling out.

Don't talk. and then I sleep. I sleep, it's like I don't sleep all weekend long too. I literally want, and I still work, but I'm, very specific about it. Whereas in the week, I mean, I'm working all the time. I work almost every evening. I'm catching up on things. I'm figuring out what happened.

What did I miss? What project here, you know, organizing, it's just, I have to work really hard at this because I'm a bit of a workaholic but I will always break for kids and family and, fun that I choose. I'm not saying yet. I like, I'm not as social as I used to be. I have my circle of friends who I am devoted to.

And it's very mutual and I feel so sustained and fulfilled by these women. And then the people I was more, you know, I loved my acquaintances too. And people I would see on a, for a coffee here and there, but you know what? Can't do it. And when I can, I'm psyched. And if someone can't tolerate that change in the way that I relate or have them as a friend, then I'm sorry.

And so learning to say no, learning to protect myself, learning to be quiet and replenish, whatever mechanism, whether it's, you know, meditation or exercise, or I don't know, just sleep, eating well.

Dawn Andrews: It's been so helpful to, hear your perspective on what it takes to be able to operate at this level. Founding any sort of company takes a lot, but again, you're working on sort of in three different inroads to be able to build this company that has such a big mission.

So, thank you for being real about what it's like behind the scenes, because I think similar to the, uh, the baby bliss myth that we had been previously sold that I think has finally been dismantled. I do think there's an entrepreneurial bliss myth that's out there that, if I see another Instagram photo of somebody's like laptop and flip flops with a cocktail next to them on the beach, as if that's every day, like, I'm not saying that there aren't those moments.

There 100 percent are those moments. And that's why entrepreneurship is amazing. However, that is not the beginning and totality of it. So, thank you for just sharing the real, real of what it takes to be you running this kind of business. 

Catherine Birndorf: Thanks for asking the questions that you always ask too, which are always insightful and get me thinking and push me to pinpoint what it is like or what it feels like. Cause I don't always put words to it. what I don't do enough is sort of celebrate the, you know, I'm onto the next thing. I need to stop and, acknowledge sometimes we do it when we're on Zoom, we have a little dance party and then we're like, okay, let's go next .

Dawn Andrews: Back to it. 

Catherine Birndorf: Back to it. But yeah, I'm being vulnerable doing this is that being real. I mean, it's really hard. I always feel like if I knew what I know now, would I do it?

I don't know, but mission wise for for sure. I had no clue. You just can't know, it's just like having a baby. If you knew what it was to be pregnant and go through labor and those early, it's like, would you do it? Well, you'd think you wouldn't, but of course you do.

Because you want where it's going. And I want where this is going. And I want the motherhood center to be in every state in the country. And I got to keep doing this if that's going to happen and I believe that it will. So what am I going to do?

Dawn Andrews: Keep on showing up. Okay. May I give you one piece of coaching? 

Catherine Birndorf: Yes. 

Dawn Andrews: I'm going to give you a piece of coaching and then I have one more question for you as we wrap up. So my piece of coaching is this, and this is for every founder and entrepreneur out there, create a designated acknowledger. 

So for instance, you have a chief of staff, you have a, you know, your person, perhaps they could be your designated acknowledger. And it's their job to look at what's going on in the course of a week, in the course of the year, whatever it is, and kind of call out the wins, call out the celebrations.

And I know that you do that in your Monday meetings a little bit, but we're looking for the things for you, like what they've noticed about you, because being a founder, being a CEO, is an incredibly lonely place. 

Catherine Birndorf: Oh, I wanted to say that. 

Dawn Andrews: It's an incredibly lonely place and you need somebody who can reflect it back to you and you know, girl, you know, I will, but I'm looking for somebody that's in your day to day that can see,

Catherine Birndorf: And I do have someone like that , as you know, they do a good job of it and I hope I do it for them and I hope I do it for everybody. And yes, I don't get a lot of credit or a lot of, kudos or a lot of like that atta girl or, you know, it's really hard because when you're at the top, everyone thinks you got it all going on all the time and it's not easy. And it's lonely and there aren't acknowledgers out there. That's a very, that's a great way to say it. Like it is nice to have, somebody inside who sees you.

Dawn Andrews: Well and appreciates the blood, sweat and tears that got you to that, culminating moment. 

Catherine Birndorf: Yep. Because you're everybody else's cheerleader, right? But it's nice to have someone and by the way, I have it within the company, but I also have it among other colleagues and friends who are founders doing really cool things and they're always celebrating my wins and I'm always celebrating that like we have a crew that is doing really interesting, exciting things. And I think that we are good acknowledgers for each other, which feels really nice. 

Dawn Andrews: Excellent that I can feel like I can close up this podcast in peace knowing that that's taken care of. Here's my last question for you, imagine yourself in the middle of Times Square with all the sparkly billboards. The largest one is for you to share a message with female founders to help encourage them on their way. What's the message you would like to share?

Catherine Birndorf: What's the message? some version of, you know, kind of go for it. and then I think of the town, don't back down. I have Tom Petty in my head going, and you will, right? Like, it's like, it's like, don't, don't back down. Don't take no for an answer, go for it. If you believe in it and you truly think it's important, and you have the luxury of being able to make that happen or to try to make that happen, then go for it. I don't know. What are you waiting for? There's no time like the present and God knows what tomorrow will be . You have to just, you have to go for it. You believe in it. Do it.

Dawn Andrews: Nice. Okay. Catherine, where can people find more information about the motherhood center? I know, I know there's a website. I know you guys have an Instagram. Where do you guys want, where do you want people to go to find more? 

Catherine Birndorf: The website is probably the best place. It's we just redid it. We've got a provider site. you know, for the public. I think it explains a lot educationally. It talks about what we do. I tell the mission story on it. You got it . The motherhood center.com. It's the, that helps. So the motherhood center. com. think that's probably our Instagram. That's our everything else. You know, I don't, I don't manage that. 

Dawn Andrews: You're like, I have so many things I'm managing that is not one of them.

Catherine Birndorf: Please, not my strong suit. 

Dawn Andrews: I will make sure that it's in the show notes so people can find you. 

Catherine Birndorf: Yeah, and by the way, we are, you know, we'll take calls and, referrals and we can help people in other states. We can help people all over. And if people are interested in learning more about it, I think that's the place to 

Dawn Andrews: That's a place to go. Girl. Thank you so much for your time today. I, always love our chats and I'm especially present to what a champion for women you are, and I'm deeply grateful to be a part of and continue contributing to your journey. Thank you for joining me today.

Catherine Birndorf: Thank you for all your help and all your support.

Dawn Andrews: If you found today's episode valuable, please share it with fellow business owners who might benefit. And don't forget to subscribe to My Good Woman for more insights and strategies to help you transform from founder to confident CEO. Until next time, keep striving, thriving, and staying impactful. I'm Dawn Andrews, and this has been My Good Woman, business strategy and time management for impactful female leaders.See you next time.