This week, we’re sitting down with Barbara Mighdoll, owner and CEO of MNT Studio — the first wellness social club combining Pilates, co-working, sauna, and childcare — who also runs the marketing agency behind her brand New Modern Mom and just co-founded Roam Collective, a family sabbatical company. Barbara shares what it’s like to grow one Pilates studio into seven locations in two years.
In this week’s conversation, Barbara opens up about leaving a job after panic attacks over her boss’s emails, acquiring a Pilates studio three months after quitting corporate, and the nine-week trip to Portugal that turned into a total business pivot. We talk about selling out a six-week family trip to Spain in 28 minutes, why she doesn’t eat dinner with her kids, running her household on five shared Google calendars, and why she’s finally comfortable letting “urgent” things fall behind the important ones.
What We Cover:
Why she describes her days as “structured yet chaotic, social yet isolated, fulfilled yet exhausted” — and the theory that two things can always be true at once
The system behind her mornings - 6:30am wake-up, movement, and walking to school with her husband before the workday starts
Acquiring a Pilates studio three months after quitting a toxic corporate job, the nine-week trip to Portugal that changed everything, and growing one studio into a wellness social club on track for seven locations by year’s end
How a chance meeting in Nice turned into Roam Collective, a family sabbatical company that sold out its first program in San Sebastian in 28 minutes (and its August cohort in 18)
Why she doesn’t eat dinner with her kids, the Trader Joe’s haul and five sauces that make bowl night easy, her nightly movement practice, and the ChatGPT prompt she built to pull recipes from her favorite food blogs
The math behind choosing an au pair over a nanny or daycare and the built-in Thursday date night that requires zero planning
Running her household on five shared Google calendars, a dry-erase wall calendar, and a house manager who handles the chores no one wants to fight about
Managing an autoimmune disease with twice-monthly IV treatments, the “self-discovery zone” and twice-yearly off-sites with her husband that keep her from burning out, and why she hasn’t taken a single day off in two years
Connect with Barbara:
Instagram: @newmodernmom
Substack: New Modern Mom
Podcast: The New Modern Mom Podcast (relaunching this summer)
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Loved how granular we got in our chat! Thanks for having me!