Rewriting the Rules: One Mother’s Leap from Marketing to Mental Health Advocacy

After spending close to 18 years building a successful career in the marketing communications industry, Mary Seid knew she needed to make a change.

About a year earlier, post-birth health complications during COVID started a challenging journey of overcoming severe postpartum anxiety. At a similar time, she had a month-long sabbatical from her job at Jackson Spalding, one of the largest independent PR and marketing agencies. During her time off, Seid decided to leave her job in search of a better balance, and as she reflected on her experience, she recognized she wasn’t the only one struggling with juggling parenthood and home responsibilities alongside a full-time career.

This realization led her to shift toward marketing consulting work and launching Hera Wellbeing, a company focused on offering wellbeing and organizational support to working parents and businesses. She now has a balanced, flexible career she’s passionate about and one that allows her to make a difference in the lives of women like her.

Hear more of Seid’s inspiring story, details of how she now aspires to make a difference in the lives of working parents through Hera Wellbeing, and her tips for balancing parenthood and work in our interview below.

What led you to begin your entrepreneurial journey?

I have two kids, and I had my first, a little girl, Emma, and then I had my second, Jacob, in May of 2020. It was peak COVID, not ideal times, and I ended up having health complications after my birth with him, including pretty severe postpartum preeclampsia. When I came home, I was very much teetering on the edge of anxiety, but as a new mom's do, I pushed that down and was like, we’ve got things to do here. We have a newborn. I ended up going back to work full time about four months later, still pushing things down and just trucking along.

Right before my son's first birthday, the vaccine came out for COVID, and it was like, okay, life can kind of resume normalcy. I could finally take a deep breath, and I just couldn't breathe. It was like everything came crashing down, and I dealt with pretty severe postpartum anxiety for the better part of the next four months.

During that time, my company was very supportive, which was great. I had been at the company for 10 years, and they gave out sabbaticals, so I ended up having a month off. After that month off, I was like, I can't go back to doing what I was doing before, so I ended up quitting. It was pretty eyeopening, my level of stress difference. And I was like, there has to be a happy medium that I can find.

I started doing contract work. I went freelance, and that was a much better balance. It helped me get my footing, and I had time to think about things. I was reflecting on my experience and I was like, I am certainly not the only one who deals with this. There has got to be more that can be done to support women in this phase of life and career. So I decided I was going to start my own company to do that. I was like, if I'm going to work and take time away from my kids, I want it to be something I'm really passionate about and believe in, and I feel like this is something I can do to make a difference.

Tell me about your company and why you felt there was a need for a business like it.

The company I started is called Hera Wellbeing. We offer support to working parents, primarily working moms, but dads too, because they go through a lot of change as well.

I started with the idea of going direct to corporations, reflecting on my own experience. I worked for a really supportive company at the time and they gave me a lot of grace. But at the end of the day, I still ended up quitting my job.There's a lot of time and money and effort into backfilling roles. Then I looked at, during those three to four months where I was really dealing with the postpartum anxiety, how much loss of efficiency I had and how much I cost the company there. From a business standpoint, if you're looking at the numbers, if you can support your employees on the front end, it will pay dividends in the return that you get on the other side.

The other really big thing that stuck out to me was, I've dealt with anxiety my whole life. So it shouldn't have been shocking that this happened, and yet I still did not recognize the signs and symptoms until it was way too far down the path. If I had had someone around who told me six months prior to when I did something about it, “Hey, this isn't really normal. Let's get some additional help,” my story could have been completely different. So I started taking courses in perinatal mental health through Postpartum Support International, and I started work on building this business.

What services does Hera Wellbeing offer?

On the corporate side, we offer support to businesses in the form of one-on-one consultations for your employees. So that could look like anything from helping them recognize the signs and symptoms of perinatal mood disorders to helping them come up with an efficiency plan for work or home and helping with parental leave prep and return to work prep. I offer manager trainings because a lot of manager roles tend to be older white men who may not be aware of some of these things and how it impacts not only their direct employee, but other team members, efficiency, clients, all of those things. I also offer lunch and learns.

Then I also started thinking, I don't want to limit it to corporations. I want to be able to help people one-on-one too. So I offer individual services that focus on parental leave prep and making sure that you think through all the right questions and times to talk to your employer and how to best set you and your team up for success while you're out. And then on the flip side, what return to work prep can look like and how to make that transition back as smooth as possible. I also offer support and organization for the home, putting together a custom plan for how to best tackle all of the home things.

What is the mission of your company?

At the end of the day, my goal is to support parents in that phase of life [pre- and post-parental work leave] because I firsthand felt the struggle of how difficult it can be. And I feel like there's a lot of things we don't talk about enough in our society with postpartum depression and anxiety. We need to normalize a lot of the stigma around that and have open conversation and proactively provide support to people, so that they don't end up in situations that are more difficult than they need to be.

How did your background in marketing and communications help in launching Hera?

One, the client and project management aspect of things. My job in marketing was always juggling a million things and foreseeing problems before they're there. I'm very comfortable with managing different conversations and people and personality types. The work I did internally in terms of managing a team, we always joked that instead of having chairs in my office, I should have a couch because I was the team therapist. I think it's my personality just innately to want to help people and want to nurture and make the situation better. I think that transitions well into working with individuals and finding out what is your unique situation and how can I help you?

Business wise, there was a lot of benefit to having a marketing background because I put together a lot of marketing plans for companies of how do we get you exposure and how should we position your company and come up with a company name? It was fun but kind of stressful in a different way to do it for yourself.

How did you come up with your company’s name?

Hera is the Greek goddess of motherhood and a symbol of strength. And then I liked that Hera is like one letter off from hero. It's like a feminine version of hero. And it's a short punchy word.

What do you like best about being an entrepreneur?

The biggest thing for me is it gives me control of my schedule and I have so much more freedom and flexibility. I also think that I've learned a ton. Freelancing, I work with a lot of different people and companies, so I’ve had to flex up and down on different projects and use different skills than I was using day-to-day before and try new things and get a bit out of my comfort zone. And then with Hera, it's completely out of my comfort zone in that I'm like, I'm just going to start a business and put this out there and see what happens and hope it's received well, which is a very vulnerable and kind of uncomfortable thing to do. But it's something I believe in and I'm passionate about helping people in that phase of life. So I think that's the other thing, doing something that I feel is really helping people makes it meaningful and that's a really big thing for me.

What are some of the biggest challenges to being an entrepreneur?

There is no guarantee in workflow. You could have a ton; you could have nothing; you don't really know. It’s a mental shift in how you approach work. If you're at a full-time job, you work everyday and know what's coming to an extent. I also think the vulnerability of putting something out there that is pretty personal to either be accepted or rejected by people is a pretty big thing.

What do you believe are some of the key characteristics a person needs to have to be a successful entrepreneur?

You need to be confident in your skillset and your offerings. And you need to have a level of assertiveness to go out there and pitch the business and go get it. You need to be a self starter and see things through. Things are not just going to fall in your lap, so you're going to have to go do something. You have to have some initiative. You also have to be flexible.

What tips do you have for balancing being a mother and fulfilling personal responsibilities while also being a successful entrepreneur?

It's very tough. I don't think there's an easy way to do it all. And that's part of what Hera addresses is, I do think as a society, we've kind of built up this perception that, because women can work and we can do this and we can do that, we should be doing it all. But I don't think that's realistic. You cannot do it all without support. Prioritize the most important things to you and focus on those because it’s impossible to do everything well all the time. Priorities shift during different seasons and times of the year, and that's okay. You have to be willing to ask for help where it's needed and accept help when it's offered and given. I think asking for help is actually a sign of strength versus weakness.

Taking care of yourself is also really important. You can't take care of your family and your kids well if you yourself are not taken care of. That was something I learned with my postpartum anxiety and had to make some changes in how I care for myself and learn that it's not selfish to take time for yourself because if you're not in your best place, then you can't provide the best care to others.

How do you relax and recharge to deal with stress and avoid burnout?

I go to my therapist regularly. Through my postpartum anxiety I learned that waiting until I feel like I need to go is not helpful because that's probably too late. And it's like anything else, we do things to take care of ourselves and maintain. You get a haircut every few months. Why not do something to care for your mind?

I exercise pretty regularly, whether it's going for a walk or doing something else. I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes. I meditate. And then I like to read when I can. My husband is also really involved at home and very supportive. That's really helpful too.

What’s a piece of advice you’d give to fellow female entrepreneurs?

If you want to do it, just go for it and put yourself out there. I think you'll be surprised at what you can do. You just have to be willing to connect with a lot of people. I had a ton of lunches and Zoom calls with people I did not know last year, but you get to know new people and you never know which connection will lead to something.

Why did you decide to get involved with FemFoundry?

Kim and I reconnected last year when she started her own venture and had similar views on a need for community among entrepreneurs. I love that she started FemFoundry so there's a resource for finding like-minded women in business. The community, connections and input from these ladies is wonderful!

How do you see FemFoundry making an impact with female entrepreneurs?

I think having a group of like-minded women that are there to support and uplift each other is so helpful. Being an entrepreneur can feel lonely at times and you don't have a go-to network for bouncing ideas off others, getting input etc....but with FemFoundry, you do!