Redefining "Having It All" feat. Mireia Mujika

When Mireia became a mother, everything changed. What started as a struggle to balance work and family became the spark for an entirely new path—one built around authenticity, courage, and redefining what “having it all” really means.

In this conversation, Alyssa and Mireia talk about the moment when life forces you to pause and ask, is this really what I want? They share honest stories about identity, motherhood, and how to rebuild a life that fits the person you’ve become—not the one you used to be.

Why listen:
If you’ve ever felt stuck between who you were and who you’re becoming, this episode will remind you that change isn’t failure—it’s growth.

Key takeaways:
→ “Having it all” only matters if you define what “all” means for you.
→ Sometimes clarity starts by asking what you don’t want anymore.
→ Courageous authenticity makes life and leadership lighter, not harder.

People and resources mentioned:
Stephen Bartlett – Diary of a CEO podcast
Bare and Brave – Mireia’s coaching company

It's time to say "goodbye" to the Sunday Scaries.

Connect with Alyssa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssanolte/
Subscribe to the Taking Back Monday Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7158635254474272768/
Follow the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TakingBackMondayPod
Follow the show on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@takingbackmondaypod

Transcript

0:01

Hey, you are listening to Taking Back Monday. My name is Alyssa Nolte And my name is Mireia Mujika. And we are gonna get right into it. So tell us what is your origin story? So, well, I think the origin of story is, uh, when I, I had my first child and that was back in 2000. 17 and I went back to after six months of maternity leave, I actually went back to to work and I couldn't handle it. I just couldn't, uh, for me it was extremely hard to leave my little one that was only six months old with a complete stranger in my house and me going to work. But I was not like saving lives or doing something extremely necessary for the world, right? So I, I, I couldn't really handle it. But then I said like, you know, maybe I'm being too extreme. Like, why don't I give, I'm a little bit of time to myself. Maybe I have to change career or I have to change jobs. And that's what I did. I changed, I changed jobs. And as soon as I went, I, I was three months in, in the other job, then suddenly I felt like, nah, this is not right. I just want to go home. I want I, I want to do this in a very different way. And at that time I was thinking about my maternity, not so much about my work, right? But then. Before quitting my job, I, someone told me, oh, you know, there is this course starting on Monday. That was Saturday. And she was like, starting on Monday, there is this course. Why don't you join? I think you are gonna love it. It was a coaching course. I was like, um, whatever. I'm gonna just join in, you know, uh, why not? So I went. In, and then, I mean, this were like, uh, a weekend, then another weekend. And on the third weekend I actually said like, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm for sure within my job and I think I know what I'm gonna be doing the rest of my life. And that's how I started, uh, coaching, my coaching journey. I started as a life coach. Uh, and then I've been, um, going into leadership coaching. I think that that is such a. A common challenge that we face as women, right? Because, so I have always been an entrepreneur. I have always been my own boss in a way. And when I went back after my first, um, I had him in 2015 and he was a very difficult baby. So like screaming, crying all the time. So I'm not gonna lie to you, I was pretty ready to go back to work because, um, you know, it was, it was hard. He was hard. And I will say that to, he's 10 now, and I tell him that all the time. I'm like, you were a hard baby. Um, I love you now, but you were real tough back then. And so for me, with that first one, it was really, really easy for me to go back because I wanted to be back at work because that's where I felt like myself again, my pre-baby self. Now, maybe if he would've been easier, that might've been a different story, but we have these. Dichotomies as women of, you know, if you are at work, you can't be a mom. And if you're a mom, you can't be at work. And these cultural identities that whether we give it to ourselves or our society gives it to us, it can be really hard. And, and for a lot of people, motherhood becomes a catalyst to help you see what you really want. So tell us more about coaching. What was it about coaching specifically that made you say. Yes. This is the happy in between for me. Well for me it was, you know, that reconnection with myself, right? I, I like for me, I. Like the day that my born, my, my, my, my first child was born. I, I was reborn as well. Like, it was such a change for me. It was such a, I really like, I, I really see it as, as me being born again because it was a, I was a different person completely and suddenly I didn't know myself. Right? So from one day to the other, it's like something really changed inside me and I didn't know who I was anymore. And what did I like or like all the things that were changing inside me. So coaching gave me that, right, like that reconnection with myself, and it didn't, I didn't need to go back to who I was. I actually wanted to go forward. I, I, for me, who I was before my babies was not gonna come back. Like, that's it. That, that was closed for me. I didn't want to go back that door. I wanted to go forward. I wanted to see like, okay, so now that I have. This baby in my life and I know that everything in me has changed. So who do I want to be? And coaching gave me that. Coaching, gave me like look like that feeling of like no judgment as well. Right. And going into that. A scene where you can say, and you can decide like, okay, you know this, these are my new values now this is what I want to do and I think this is who I want to be. And also it was giving me a way to say like, wow, and I don't even need to do the work that I used to do. I can actually completely change careers and do something else that probably is more fulfilling. Don't get me wrong, I used to love what I used to do before I used to do the product management. I used to love it, love it. But suddenly I went back and ah, I was a different person. Couldn't get so interested anymore. So yeah, coaching gave me that, that new perspective in myself. I think it's really important too, and this is something that we see in a lot of people, whether you have a life transforming moment like becoming a mother, or you just look up and look around and realize that the life you are living is not the one you. Really wanted it to be right. And I think we have to give ourselves permission to, to mourn the person we never became and to mourn the person that we used to be. But if you just sit there and say, well, this is the way the world is for me, then you are really just allowing that world to happen to you. I, I made a joke before we started recording that I'm either, I'm either surviving or I'm thriving and there is no in-between. And most of the time I am thriving like I am. I'm genuinely happy in what I do. It's because I have truly looked around and said, these are the things that I want for myself. These are the opportunities that I would like to pursue, and it is really hard to say the thing that I thought I wanted, I don't want anymore, and that's okay. And to give it up and to move on and to try something new. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that is extremely hard. Right? And, and as you say, sometimes we fall into life. Like we, we, we don't design it for ourselves. We don't do that also with relationships. We don't design our relationships. We should be designing our relationship. We should be designing our lives. Right. But we don't do that. We, we pass on, we, we live up to expectations of others. Right. And also I think, uh. My generation, I think you are a little bit younger than me. Younger than me, I dunno. Uh, but my generation, we were told that a, as a woman, you know, you can have a career, you can have uh, you can have children, you can have family, you can do everything that is in You can have it. All You have all, the phrase. that was it, right? And then for me it was like, what? Who's told me that that was such a life for me in that moment, right? And I, at that moment, I didn't want to work. And for me it was difficult to explain to people like, Hey, no, I actually want to go back home and I want to stay home and I want to quit and I don't want to be working for like a year at least. Right. But people would not. I mean, I remember people telling me, I, you won't be able to, like in three months we'll be sitting back to work. And I was like, nah, no, no. Making this decision. I don't want to. And then like all the judgment that we have, right? So if you go back to work immediately after, oh my God, you're a bad man. If you go to, if you stay at home, you are a bad mom as well. So everything that we do is always can be seen as we are bad mom, any, anything that we do, right? So it's difficult, I think to, to say and decide like, you know what, uh, I don't care about the expectations that you guys have of me. I'm just gonna do what I feel right now. It's difficult to do that. It's. It's really hard. Yeah. It, it, it's so hard and I think it's important that we all recognize that having it all is whatever you define as. All right. I had someone say this to me recently. Um, we were talking about the idea of like what it takes to be the best in the world at something, and we were talking about like, oh, you have to do this and this and this, and they're like, well, I'll never be, you know, the best. Football player in the world. And I'm like, yeah, but your world is really what you define it as. You could be, your world might be in your community, your world might be your state, your world might be your city, your world. The word world doesn't literally mean of all people on the planet. It could just mean whatever your world is. And I think all has that same kind of connotation here. Like you can have it all, but you get to define what all is and it is really hard. To not sit there and take the judgment from other women people that you work with, your own family to say like, well, you don't have the all that I want, so therefore it's the wrong all. Yeah, yeah. The wrong, all the defensive. So if someone is hearing this and, and they're in a state of transition, or they're just hearing this and saying, okay, this is a wake up call for me, and they're looking to, to make a change or to do something different, or just explore the possibility of. Finding their all, what is the first thing that you would have them do? Oh, that's a nice question. Well, I don't know if I would start with values. Values has to be there for sure. That's an exercise that we have to do, right? So what are the values that you have in your life? What is your another star? What is what you know, no matter what you're gonna follow through. That's one exercise for sure that I would do. Uh, another will be just to start exploring, right? What do you really want? Like get about everyone and everything that you have around you, right? Just strip you out of everything that is surrounding you, and then what do you really, really, really want? That's a question that we have to ask, right? Those are all, both really hard questions though, in my opinion because I'm, I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, I have only ever been an entrepreneur. I have heard people talk about values forever and ever, and I've been doing this for 15 years and I think that I have the values that I think I should have, right? The ones that everyone's like, these are the values you should have, but those aren't values unless they're your real values. And over these 15 years, I've really only come up with like. Two core values that are core to me and inform my decisions, and it taken me 15 years to uncover them. Um, but I think your, your comment about like, what do you really want? Strip it back. Like, not what do you think you should want? What, what does, what would you be proud to tell your mom that you want? Right? What do you really, truly want in your heart of hearts? And sometimes it's not as simple as like, I wanna work in graphic design. It could be I wanna wake up every morning and have freedom to create. Yeah, that it can be that. And sometimes it's simple. Simple. Like I remember, uh, one person told me that, look, I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I want to wake up in the morning and I don't want to rush. Yeah, I don't want to have the stress of taking my kids to school, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I want to, whatever work I, whatever job I have, I just want to be calmly going there. If I have to drive, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't want to rush, right? So whatever she wanted at the end of the day was not to rush. She was like, and I want to come back from work and I want to go in the car just driving smoothly, you know? And then I arrive home and I don't have the stress to have to have dinner and stuff. No, I just want to have everything calming down. So then it's like, okay, so if this is where you want, how can we decide that? So what job do you have to have in order to have that in your life, if this is extremely so important for you? So sometimes it's not about like the, you know, because most of the times when we are thinking about, oh, what do I want? We start thinking about our job because at the end of the day, it's eight hours of our lives. Eight or 10 or 12 sometimes, right? So we start with those things, but a maybe sometimes a little bit more simple than that. Like what do you, what are you lacking right now in your life? What is annoying you in your life? What is barking in your life right now? So sometimes those type of type of questions are more important than defining the big, big, like, wow, I want to have, like, I want to do this, uh, as a job and I want to have a, a partner, or I want to. Have kids, right? Sometimes it's like, no, I just want to have a calm life, or I just want to live in a place where there's no noise or there's no publicity and, and, um, branding everything coming in in my face. Right. Hmm. Interesting. Okay, so if that is so important for you, let, let's try to decide everything else around that. I think that that's really important too because everything you just talked about has nothing to do with your skills or your talents or what you're good at, because honestly, there's probably like your skills and your talents, you will have something that somebody needs somewhere. If. We can just position it. Right. But the other thing that I like that you aren't talking about here, and, and so many people who deliver similar coaching services will talk about your passion, the thing that you're passionate about, the thing that you love. And I, I love that you're saying, I we're not gonna talk about the thing that you love to do.'cause that can change. You can transform. We loved our work and then we had kids and our lives changed and like things changed. So, you know, not focusing on passion, but focusing on what you. Truly, deeply want and need in order to be a fulfilled human being. I think that that is such a smart way to think about it rather than what are you good at and what do you love to do? Yeah. And I can be very good at, I'm very good at cycling. I am, I have always been very good at cycling. I want that to be part of my life. Do you even want to do it? No. You know, cycling takes me an hour and a half if I actually want to do some exercise, do I? No, I don't wanna do that. You know it. You can be very good at certain things that then you don't want to actually do them Yeah, I mean, you're good at cycling. Does, does that mean yet you wanna be a Peloton instructor who leads classes across the world? Like actually. maybe, but not necessarily. Right, right. I mean, it's, it's good like to check out the Iki guy, right? Like, okay, what are you passionate about? Blah, blah, blah, blah. So that, that little niche, maybe it's, it is, maybe it helps you into reaching out to that conclusion of, okay, maybe, maybe this is what I want to do in life. But then the other things sometimes are more important. If you told me that you love nature, then if you love nature, maybe a job in Dubai is not your thing. Yeah. For example, right? Uh, it, so there are certain things that some people told me like, oh, I couldn't live in a place where it's raining all the time. Okay, so let's design your life. Taking that into account. Or I couldn't live in a place where there is, uh, too much consumerism. Okay, good to know that. So sometimes there are deeper things than just what I want to do or what I love doing, or what I am at. And I think the, the next step of that conversation is what are you willing to sacrifice to have those things that you want? Right? So I live in Iowa. We get really wicked winners here. Like I, I can't do the Celsius conversion, but very cold. Like to the point where if you're outside for 10 minutes, your eyeballs will freeze. Because it's so cold. And I joke every year with my husband, I'm like, why do we live here? We have to like, we need to find somewhere else to live. I need to live somewhere warm. But I don't really do that 'cause we've been here for 35 years. So clearly I don't really need that. I'm not willing to trade off being close to my family. I'm not willing to trade off being close to, you know, living in the house that we live in. And so, stripping away what is a, what is a need and, and something that you are willing to give up other things in order to have. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very important also because right now, you know, we are telling young people you can be whatever you want to be. Yeah. There's a caveat. There's a whole bunch of parentheses behind that says If, if, if, if, if, Exactly. So if you are willing to sacrifice a lot, right? I want to be an Olympian swimmer. Okay, you can do that now. Know that you will have to work hard, very hard and, and sacrifice lots of things. And there were many things that you cannot do that young people your age are gonna be able to do. Yeah. So depending on, yeah, what are we willing to let go? What are we willing to sacrifice? Right. Tell us a little bit more about your coaching company. It's called Bear and Brave, so tell us more about that. What, what inspired you to start the company and what do you really feel like is the difference that you make in people's lives? be brave. Came in. Uh, this is so something funny because I'm being a Spanish speaker. I cannot properly pronounce my. That makes it more endearing. I love it. Oh, that's so funny. I remember the first time I said it and it was in English, man. And he was like, bird like, like a bird? Like, and like, no, not that one. Not that one. No, no, no. Like the naked one. Yeah. The naked one. Yeah. So bird rabies come in, uh. If I, like, I was thinking of like, how do I, how do I put courageous authenticity in a brand, right? That was for me, like, okay, um, I, I cannot say courageous authenticity. I don't want to call my, my company courageous authenticity, but I would something that will symbolize that, right? So that's why I said Bird and brave. I don't, and I like the B and b. Um, so that's where it's coming from, I think. Uh. I think if you're courageous enough to be authentic, then your life is so much easier. Your leadership is gonna be so much better. So, but, but it takes a lot to actually be bold, enough to be completely authentic. So that's where, where it's coming from. Um, what, uh, is the difference that, uh, we make, uh, with Burn Brave? So. Well, I think we go into leadership looking always. I mean, we don't look so much at the skills that you have, right? It's about who you want to be as a leader. What is gonna define your leadership? How do you want to do this? Uh, what is gonna, what are gonna be the values that are gonna define your leadership? So we go always. Looking in within to then come out. And that's, uh, that's the approach we take in everything we do, whether it is leadership training, leadership coaching, or team coaching. Right. We always look inside to then come out. I. Thinking about, you know, all of the incredible people that you, you know, or that you aspire to know, who else should we be listening to? Who else should we be paying attention to? That's a different, you know, who, like, who comes to me? Like the first, uh, the first thing is Stephen Barlett, I guess you, you know him. Uh, I think every, every person that he has in his show is so. It was so inspiring to me. You know, uh, it's, I mean, he's inspiring himself, right? Like, uh, all his story and everything is quite beautiful. Uh, but then it's about the interest or how he, who he brings into his show is talking about something. Particular something niche, something that is extremely important for all humans. So that's something that I, I really like about him. Uh, he can be talking today about nutrition and tomorrow about finance, and then about how to invest money in whatever, right? So that's, that, those, that's something that I really like, the diversity of topics that, uh, we can find, uh, thanks to him. That's, uh, something I, I really enjoy. Um, who else? Oh, there's someone that I really, really love. She's Spanish as well. Uh, uh, she, she looks at. Uh, lemme tell you the story. So, when I had my second child, it was also a very difficult child. Uh, a very, very difficult baby, uh, always crying. I, I didn't know what to do anymore, and I was getting myself like, very tense, right? Because I was like, oh my God, am I doing something wrong? So, uh, friend called me and she told me like, okay, go see. There is a, a physio and a osteopath and someone that is trained very well in, in many arts, I would say. And I went to her and I, as I sat down suddenly I felt like a lot of. Peace. I was like, oh my God, what is, what is this? And she works with energy, right? Uh, she doesn't even, like, she's a physio, but she doesn't even touch you. And suddenly just in her presence, you become so calm and she. Uh, she does this job, this is her job, so you can go to her clinic. And, but she also talks a lot about what she does, and it's, uh, it's, I think, quite magical, if you allow me the word. Uh, yeah. It's, I think something extremely special. Something that I haven't seen many times in my life. Yeah. Very cool. And if someone is hearing this and they are really connecting with you, they are ready to be courageous and authentic and they want to learn more, where can they find you online? They can find me bur I brave. Uh, bur as naked bur brave com. Uh, also on LinkedIn as mi ika, M-U-J-I-K-A. An pronunciation, actually it's mos. When I'm speaking English, I just say moca. Anyway, uh, yeah, I think those are the two easiest ways, um, on YouTube also, we have some presence but not so much. Trying to increase that a little bit. Well, thank you so much for coming on, taking back Monday. This was a really important conversation and I hope everybody got as much out of it as I did. Thank you Elissa, for having me here. It was a pleasure to be hear and having a conversation, deep conversation with you.