Nobody hands you maternity leave when you run your own business. You build it or you don't take one.

In this episode, Marina gets into exactly how she prepared for maternity leave as a consultant with active retainer clients, what the first 40 days of postpartum actually looked like as a business owner, and what she would do differently if she had to do it all again.

This is the episode for every freelancer, consultant, and service provider who has wondered how to step away without losing clients, income, or momentum and for every new or expecting mom trying to figure out what sustainable business ownership actually looks like in the hardest season of her life.

Topics covered:
— How to prepare your retainer clients for your maternity leave
— What to batch, what to delegate, and what to let go
— The first 40 days postpartum: what nobody tells business owners
— Why presence (not productivity) is what good preparation buys you
— How a podcast can generate income while you're completely offline
— Profitable Podcasting Without Sales Calls: the program that kept earning while Marina was in her first 40 days

If your business only works when you do, this episode is the wake-up call and the roadmap.

https://themodernmocktail.thrivecart.com/profitable-podcasting/

Unmedicated birth. Sober mom. Two miscarriages. 200 days of vomiting. And a business that held through all of it.

In this episode, Marina shares the full story from meeting her husband in 2021 and building a life around their future family, to two pregnancy losses, a pregnancy that left her barely functional for months, and the unmedicated birth of their son, Bula Baby, on February 12th, 2026.

But this isn't just a birth story. It's about what happens when you reject fear in the birth room and in business and build something on your own terms instead.

Marina breaks down why she, as a sober woman, chose to go completely unmedicated through labor and delivery, the connection between sobriety and presence, why she saw labor as teamwork between herself, her husband, and her baby, and what it felt like to be fully in it without interference for every contraction.

She also gets honest about the entrepreneurship side of this season: how a business built for "later" became the lifeline that carried their family through the hardest year of their lives before baby ever arrived and what that taught her about building with real intention.

In this episode:
— Why sobriety and an unmedicated birth are rooted in the same philosophy
— Rejecting fear culture around birth and why 98% of people wanted to hand them their fears
— The full birth timeline: water breaking at 7am, birthing center arrival, baby by 7pm, home by 11pm
— Two pregnancy losses and what they taught Marina about resilience and intentional building
— How a virtual business built for lifestyle freedom became the foundation that made this season survivable
— Why your podcast might be your most underleveraged business asset and how to fix that

Resources mentioned: Profitable Podcasting Without Sales Calls → themodernmocktail.thrivecart.com/profitable-podcasting/

Nobody tells you that becoming a mom changes your capacity not just your schedule, but your actual bandwidth. And nobody tells you that building a business in the middle of that is still possible. In fact, it might be the thing that finally clarifies what you've been building toward all along.

In episode 102 of Mocktails with Marina, host Marina gets honest about what early motherhood actually looks like when you're also an entrepreneur. The fog, the grief of losing your old capacity, the 20-minute windows that somehow have to be enough and why those constraints ended up being the most clarifying thing that ever happened to her business.

This episode covers:

— Why the "perfect time to launch" is a myth, and what to do instead
— How building in the margins of new motherhood forced Marina to get ruthless about what actually moves the needle
— The connection between her bar industry background and building business systems that work without you
— Why your podcast is one of the most powerful sales tools you're not fully using
— How to build a podcast ecosystem that sells your offers without sales calls, discovery calls, or being available around the clock
— 4 practical strategies for sustainable entrepreneurship in a full season of life

This one is for the mom entrepreneur who is trying to hold the baby and the business at the same time. It's for the multi-passionate woman who has been told to slow down, simplify, pick one thing and who refuses to. It's for the podcaster who has been pouring herself into her show and wondering why it isn't converting.

You don't have to choose between the life you're building and the business you're building. This episode is proof.

Marina also shares details on Profitable Podcasting Without Sales Calls: a program designed to help podcasters build an ecosystem that generates income without sales calls, valued at $3,000–$5,000 in strategy alone, available for $397.

🎙️ Listen now and leave a review if this one hit home.

🔗 Profitable Podcasting Without Sales Calls: themodernmocktail.thrivecart.com/profitable-podcasting/