About the Show
Stories that feel like yours
The Breadwinners is a podcast about the realities of earning, leading, and balancing. It's about the choices people make when the workplace and the world don't match the promises they were given.
Each episode features a conversation with someone who has redefined what success looks like after realizing the old scripts no longer worked. Together we explore leadership, identity, family in all its forms, ambition, and the systems that shape how people show up at work and at home.
Our Thesis
The old success script is breaking. The system mismatch is destabilizing leadership and identity. We talk to people finding their own way.
Your Host
Rachael Lowell
After helping lead 23 Harvard schools through the chaos of pandemic-era work, I saw the disconnect between how things have always worked and the reality of a world that keeps shifting faster than our systems can keep up. Now I run Reworking Leadership, a consultancy helping organizations align strategy, leadership, and culture — especially when the pressure's high.
Signature Segments
How each episode is built
Radical honesty about what breadwinning really looks like now.
Carboload
Quick-fire reflections near the end: a myth you've outgrown, what you're learning now, who's a breadwinner you'd love to break bread with.
Let It Rise
Space for guests to plug, promote, or celebrate something they're working on.
Croutons
Random facts, ideas, or tangents that come up in conversation. The good stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.