Sara Blanchard shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Sara, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I started a new routine this year! I used to have heavy sleep inertia – whether it was low blood pressure or low heart rate or whatever was happening with my body overnight – and would smack my alarm to get out of bed in time to help the kids get out the door for school. It was only after I started neurofeedback last year that I suddenly started naturally waking up around 6 or 7am.
I now get myself dressed for the day before I leave my room (sunscreen and all!), grab a gulp of water, make a lovely cup of coffee and bring it to the front porch to enjoy as the sun is coming up. I might even take a barefoot stroll down my sidewalk to see how my flowers are coming in this summer. I come inside to pull my tarot cards, do some journaling depending on my level of anxiety, and talk with my husband about the day ahead – and only after that do I pull out my phone and check texts or emails. It’s been such a calmer way to start my days, feeling like I have time to take up space and just BE.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I bring authenticity to a space of experts, creating an inclusive environment for dialogue that drives action and change long after everybody has left the room.
That sort of energy shows up in the projects I take on – whether I’m emceeing big events like the World Happiness Summit, hosting conversations on our podcast What Do You Mean By That?, writing articles or books (my third one is due out Fall 2026), or being hired to speak with organizations about the intersection of identity and wellbeing.
I’ve had a seemingly meandering path to get here, having graduated from Harvard and worked at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York before training to be a life coach and immersing myself in positive psychology.
But ultimately, it’s in my DNA to help bridge gaps – I am both Japanese and White – and me and my White Canadian husband are constantly learning and unlearning as we navigate raising multi-ethnic teenage daughters with non-apparent disabilities. We are all unique, and the faster we embrace difference as normal, the faster we’ll have a healthier society that lets us all thrive!
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was a quirky, independent, driven kid who loved playing outside, reading, getting good grades, and twirling the long curly cord around my fingers with my feet up the wall chatting with friends on the phone until the wee hours of the morning.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
The easy answer would be the death of my dad when I was 26 years old – once I realized we don’t live forever, I left finance and forged a new path that I’ve traveled ever since.
But the harder answer is this: when the magazine I worked on in college was looking for a new editor-in-chief, I put my hat in the ring, and was accidentally cc:ed on an email where they said they couldn’t give it to me because I regularly come up with silly ideas.
Sure, we had a big conversation about it to clear the air, but I started doubting myself. I mean, I DO come up with tons of ideas – it’s my personality. When I was in corporate America, my ideas like writing special reports or advocating for an internal website or giving foreign workers access to better healthcare worked out okay. But once I left finance and was coming up with ideas for myself, I suddenly wasn’t sure if they were great or silly, and I started playing safer, playing smaller. It was only years later that I realized that idea-generation might be one of my signature moves. I came up with the idea to have a Grammy-nominated hip hop group do a tour of our public school system and asked if a non-profit would sponsor a meeting for parents to learn the same things the kids were learning. When the non-profit representative took the mic to introduce the session, she said something along the lines of, “When Sara came up with this wild idea, we thought it was pretty crazy – but look, here are 100 parents. It worked.”
It works. Being who you are, works.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
My kids. Hands down, my kids. And it’s twofold:
When my youngest finally started kindergarten, I came up with the idea to be a “Flex Mom” – basically, leading a flexible work life that let me work during the school day, during the school year. We pre-record our summer episodes on the podcast so are largely hands off; we don’t typically take speaking gigs during the summer. To the best of our ability, we take opportunities for virtual webinars that take place during the school hours. Sure, there are some fabulous projects that the kids know are important to me, which take me away from home for several days at a time, or force me to miss dinner some evenings. But I value being present for the kids, and even if it means I grumble at the number of hours I’m forced to be a chauffeur to get them to their activities, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
It also informs the sort of work I choose to do. It’s important to me that my kids don’t grow up thinking that their worldview is THE worldview that everyone else has or even should have; I needed to learn and unlearn a lot, starting with the role that race plays in our society, so I can help them be better friends and citizens. I’ve more recently been exploring what it means to learn differently, and what it means to show up with different abilities, and how all of this intersects with my fervent hope that we can create spaces where wellbeing can be felt by more people. It’s all in service of making the world – and the people in it – a little better for this next generation.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I would stop rationing the money I budget towards traveling – in particular, traveling to see my family. We’re scattered all across the country, and the belly laughs we have when we’re together are priceless. I’d spend much more time and money to make sure we see each other more than we already do!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sarablanchard.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarablanchardauthor/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarablanchardauthor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sarablanchard
- Other: https://www.whatdoyoumeanbythat.com/
https://www.instagram.com/whatdoyoumeanbythatpodcast/
