DR. ALEXANDRA PENSIERO
GROWTH THROUGH IMPERFECTION
Dr. Alexandra Pensiero never believed failure was the opposite of growth. While raising two daughters, earning three degrees, and launching a business, she learned that motherhood wasn't competing with ambition. It was redefining it.
Listen to her video interview here on the Between Meetings & Motherhood podcast.
You’re building something culturally responsive, community-rooted maternal support. What first gave you the conviction that you were meant to lead this work?
If I told you I have always been a perfect student, I would be lying. For me, continuous learning started from the inside out. The more attuned I became to myself in adulthood and clear on what mattered, the more open I was to growth…even when it was uncomfortable. My love of learning came from hard life lessons and more failures than I can count. And yet, as a society, we have become so afraid of failing. I fail every day: in motherhood, in my work, in small ways and big ones. But failure is not the opposite of growth. It is the condition for it.
Since my first daughter was born in 2017, I have earned three degrees, navigated two career shifts, launched a business, and supported hundreds of leaders. Not because I had it figured out, but because I refused to believe that ambition and motherhood were in competition. They never were. Both can coexist. And motherhood has been the greatest teacher of that. Those two girls do not need me to be perfect. They need me to be present, honest, and willing to keep going. That is the model I hope resonates with them well into adulthood.
You describe a strong calling to be of service and to educate others. How has motherhood influenced that purpose? Has it deepened or changed the way you show up in your work?
My purpose has not changed so much as it has expanded. Empowering people to see their own strength has been the thread through every role I have held: classroom teacher, school psychologist, leader, coach.
What motherhood has done is broaden my perspective and deepen my self-awareness in ways nothing else could. It has brought a softer side of me forward. I am far more attuned now to the invisible weight people carry: the mental load of doing all the things, being all the things, and still trying to show up fully. That awareness does not leave the room when I am coaching. It just broadens the reality of my client's context. And honestly? I get to practice it every single day at home.
You’ve been intentional about continuing your growth while raising your daughters. What decisions or tradeoffs have you had to make to support both your ambition and your role as a mother?
For my two bright-eyed, impressionable daughters, showing them that I could show up at home, at work, and for myself was non-negotiable. I was never willing to sacrifice their joy for my own ambition. But I also knew that to be my best self, I had to tend to the things that fill me. Everyone's journey has to be right for them. For me, it was choosing to believe that I could be ambitious, successful, AND a great mom. Though, at times, the social media reels quietly suggested otherwise. It was about identifying my values from the inside out, not what society told me to value. I love that Mothered is redefining that reality.
For me, the real tradeoffs looked like waking up at 4am to write my dissertation before their eyes opened, or sitting in a gymnastics waiting room for three hours with my face buried in research. It meant being intentional about my time and willing to reallocate my energy when something felt off. It is never perfect. It is a continuous, imperfect awareness of who needs what, when. And I am honest with my girls about the hard parts. This means naming when I am overwhelmed and showing them how I come back to myself. I am not shielding them from what makes life hard. I am showing them what it looks like to move through it. Sometimes it is raw and messy. But isn't that life?
The idea of “getting your pink back” resonates with so many mothers. What did that moment or process look like for you personally? When did you start to feel like yourself again?
I first heard the phrase on Kylie Kelce's podcast Not Gonna Lie. The moment they said it, I felt it in my chest; someone had finally given it a name.
The concept is rooted in nature. A mother flamingo loses her pink because she transfers everything directly to her baby: her nutrients, her color, her vitality. Over time, as she tends to herself again, her color slowly restores. That is the gift of motherhood. One day 100% of you becomes about this tiny, miraculous human, and there are no words for that transformation. Getting your pink back is not about choosing yourself over your children. It is about recognizing that a restored version of you is the greatest thing you can give them. For me that looked like returning to work that lit me up, building something that was mine, and giving myself permission to want things again. Not instead of motherhood, but because of it.
There’s a lot of conversation about “balancing it all,” but not a lot of honesty about what that actually requires. What has been the most challenging part of holding both motherhood and ambition fully and what has helped you navigate it?
Balance for me is not a destination, but a daily negotiation. The most challenging part of holding both motherhood and ambition fully has been releasing the idea that I should be able to do it without friction. There will be weeks where work gets the most of me, and weeks where my girls need me that takes priority over any deadline. (And also weeks where we need to escape and have a little fun, too!) The lie we are sold is that if we are strategic enough, organized enough, disciplined enough, it will all flow. Sometimes it flows. Sometimes it breaks.
What has helped me most is staying curious instead of critical when something falls short. It was asking "what does this moment actually need?" instead of spiraling into should haves. Coaching gave me that language and that posture. It gave me a framework for moving forward instead of getting stuck in what was not working. That is exactly why I feel called to give it back: Not to fix people. Not to repair what is broken. But to help them flow forward, in alignment with who they actually are. That is what Wellspring Coaching is built on. And it turns out, it is also exactly what motherhood asks of me every single day.
You’re raising two young girls while also building a life rooted in ambition and service. What do you hope they learn from watching you, and how are you intentionally teaching them things like stress management, resilience, and self-belief at such a young age?
Everything I have built comes back to one thing: helping people believe in their own capacity. I want my daughters to be anchored in their own values, needs, and sense of self. The world will have opinions about how much space they are allowed to take up or what their own journey in motherhood should look like. My job is to make sure they never internalize that as truth. Their light does not have to shrink to make others comfortable. My greatest hope is that they find the rooms worthy of it: rooms that challenge them, rooms that value them, rooms where who they are is never too much and always enough.
Watching them in gymnastics has been one of the greatest teachers of that. That sport does not let you hide. It is unforgiving. You fall in front of everyone. You repeat the same skill hundreds of times before it clicks. Every session is a lesson in resilience, patience, and trusting yourself under pressure. Their relationship with failure is more developed in adolescence than mine was in my early thirties. That humbles me and drives me at the same time.
So at home, the coaching never stops. A few phrases that live on repeat in our house:
We don't expect perfect. We expect trying.
We don't say can't. We just can't do it yet.
We are allowed to have feelings, but what we do with them is what makes a situation better or worse.
My job is not to make life perfect for you. My job is to love you, keep you safe, and make sure you keep growing.
More than achievement, I want them to have agency. The confidence to ask: what do I think? What do I need? What kind of person do I want to be right now?
Those questions will serve them long after any trophy, title, or degree. And every day at home I get to practice what I built my career around. Turns out my most formative coaching work happens before 8am, in a kitchen, with two girls who have absolutely no interest in my credentials.
Dr. Alexandra Pensiero built her career from the ground up, which started in the classroom, then as a school psychologist, co-directing a mental health initiative, and ultimately into state-level leadership supporting hundreds of organizations and leaders. Since her first daughter was born in 2017, she has earned three additional degrees, including a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, Learning and Innovation, and an ICF-coaching certification. All while raising two girls and refusing to believe that ambition and motherhood were ever in competition.
That conviction is what led her to co-found Wellspring Coaching and Consultation, LLC with her colleague, Amy Gallagher. The name speaks for itself. A wellspring does not repair. It flows forward, sourcing from something deeper, moving in alignment. Wellspring exists for the professionals, the mothers, and the women who are both. Dr. Pensiero brings every version of her story into that work: the educator, the psychologist, the researcher, the leader, and the mom figuring it out in real time. Coaching is not something she does. It is how she lives.
Website: www.WellSpringCoachingandConsulting.org
Instagram: @wellspringcoaches
TikTok: @wellspringcoaches
LinkedIn: Alexandra Pensiero
Photography: @aviphotographi
