Thriving in all seasons
In the pleasure garden with Madeleine Natale
In the Pleasure Garden features monthly reflections from women solopreneurs about what nourishes them, from pleasure and self-care rituals to building businesses that sustain us rather than deplete us.
What if thriving isn't only the rose bush in full bloom, but also the seed that knows when to wait?
This month, I'm welcoming Madeleine Natale into the Pleasure Garden. Madeleine is a certified executive coach who helps clients reconcile their career ambitions with everything else that matters in their lives. She partners with professionals, parents, and leaders who are navigating transitions, seeking clarity, and building sustainable success.
Last January, I worked with Madeleine during a threshold moment in my business. In our conversation, we explore what thriving means to us and the space between surviving and thriving.
Grab your tea and join us.
Shelagh Lenon: Can you give me three pleasurable words to describe yourself?
Madeleine Natale: Caring, cozy, and funny.
Shelagh Lenon: Is there a ritual in your day that you can't live without?
Madeleine Natale: Oh, coffee. Coffee made by my husband, who is Italian, who is an engineer, who understands coffee and understands coffee machines. And we have a beautiful, luxurious espresso machine.
Shelagh Lenon: Is there a book or a podcast or a resource that deeply influences you or has deeply influenced you?
Madeleine Natale: Well, the one that is very present for me in the past months is Dr. Corinne Low’s Having It All. She is an economist who works at the Wharton School in the States, and this has deeply influenced my language and way of thinking about being a woman in particular, being a mother within our economic system right now, in particular, in North America.
What I really appreciate is that she wrote this book to be accessible to anyone, not just economists. It's given me a new framework and a new lens for describing and thinking about these issues which are really important to me, personally and in my coaching practice. So I'd say in the past six months, that is for sure, the standout book.
Shelagh Lenon: I need to read that book!
You know, what you're saying about having a new framework really resonates with me. I've been reflecting on one of the surprises for me last year was realizing how much pleasure I get from seeing other people thrive, particularly the women I support.
I get pleasure from my own thriving, but I also get so much pleasure from witnessing other people's capacity to thrive.
This word "thrive" really came to me when we connected last January. It was a pivotal, threshold moment in my life. Through our conversations, I got clear on what thriving meant to me and how I want to be in my own business. How do I thrive sustainably? How is my work intrinsically connected to other people thriving?
That was a gift, to have that space with you to explore those questions. It felt like foundational work, basement work for my business. Becoming clear on my approach around thriving crystallized how I want to move in my business.
So I've thought a lot about thriving, and I would love to hear from you. What does this word mean for you at this particular point in your life? What does thriving look like at this stage?
Madeleine Natale: Oh, before we move over to that, I have one question that I'm feeling called to ask as a follow up to what you said. What has changed for you in terms of thriving from January of 2024 to January 2025?
Shelagh Lenon: I think for me, what I saw is that thriving is connected to abundance and having an abundance mindset. When we have a scarcity mindset, or see that there's not enough to go around, I think it's challenging to thrive. When you have a scarcity mindset, I think you can focus on your own thriving, and you may want to thrive, and maybe you are somehow thriving, but it doesn't include other people's thriving. Do you know what I mean?
Madeleine Natale: Totally, yeah.
Shelagh Lenon: And so what I really became clear on is that I want to move from a place of fullness, like there's enough for all of us and there's space for all of us in this arena.
In a way, thriving is a political act. It's not about, what am I going to get from this? It's not transactional. That's the word. And that's what I really got clear on: thriving isn't transactional.
Madeleine Natale: There you go. That reminds me of Adam Grant's book and various podcasts and articles. His book is called Give and Take, and it's basically about how being in service of others, ultimately, is good for you as an individual. It's good for society. It’s his thesis of how we should be in the world. And there's different lenses that he takes, and one of them is it's chemical, like, when you are in service of others, and when you help others, you get, it's called a helper's high, and there's a rush of dopamine when you feel that you've been in service of someone else from a place of true authenticity. And so in a way, wow, yeah, it's like when you truly give someone a gift, it gives you as much as it gives the receiver.
Shelagh Lenon: I love that. So where are you at with thriving and its meaning to you.
Madeleine Natale: I think that's why you and I worked so well together—we're both in alignment with being in service of other people while also having our own creative endeavors.
One of the things that came up when you brought up this topic is how it can be really hard when you're in a period that's just charged. There are different periods in life where things are not smooth and easeful. In my case, having small kids means periods of chaos and screaming—that's just small children.
We can attempt to do the things to regulate emotions or manage whatever that tension may be, but there are realities of caregiving or illness that don't allow true thriving to exist in that particular moment in time. And I think it's okay to not be thriving all the time. It can feel like, "Oh, I'm not thriving. What's wrong?" But it's not that there's anything wrong. You're just in a period that doesn't allow for that ease.
I think there are ebbs and flows, and what can happen is we have black and white thinking—especially as a working parent—where either you're surviving or you're thriving.
What about the gray area? What can exist in the in-between?
That's where I'm at right now. I don't feel like I'm surviving by the skin of my teeth, but there are aspects of the day that are truly quite challenging. There are so many things you want to do—good work, connect with friends, make time for your relationship, parent your children, make time for yourself. It can be very hard to fit that into a 24-hour block.
So I'm thinking about it not as a daily practice, but circling back to Corinne Low's book about how women often don't put themselves on the schedule until everything else has been filled. I'm trying to be more intentional with putting some things there that, unless there's an emergency, I wouldn't let go of. For example, that comedy show I just put money down on, or going out dancing with girlfriends in March—that's in the schedule for my birthday and it's protected.
No, that's not going to happen every day, but there are things we can do to give ourselves maybe enough for this period in time to fill that cup.
Shelagh Lenon: I really resonate with what you're saying about how we look at things black and white…and how we set it up as thriving or surviving. But maybe it's also how we're defining thriving. Like, is thriving always being in full bloom? I don't think so, and I think maybe that's how our culture defines thriving. It's the full rose bush. But maybe thriving for you in a particular moment is being quiet and not being the rose bush, but being the seed.
Madeleine Natale: Totally. I love the image of the rose bush being in full bloom. I'm looking out the window right now at the snow, and it wouldn't make sense for there to be a rose bush in full bloom in this season. That wouldn't be honoring the season that we're in right now.
I'm doing a workshop for my students next week, and there's this concept I learned about a year ago. It's actually a German word: eigenzeit.
Shelagh Lenon: Okay, eigenzeit.
Madeleine Natale: Yes, it means the time inherent to the process itself. The metaphor I'm going to offer—there are a couple—is like a baby gestating, a cake baking, or an avocado ripening. These are all processes that take the time they take. You can't turn up your oven to 500 degrees and think that cake is going to bake faster, or wish that baby's going to come out sooner. You don't want that baby to come out sooner. That's not the time it takes, right?
This concept is really helpful, especially when thinking not just about thriving, but about cycles and where we're at and transitions in particular.
Shelagh Lenon: That's beautiful. And it brings me back to seeds. They have their eigenzeit too. They wait for the right conditions, the right season. They don't rush. They trust the process.
Thank you so much Madeleine for sharing all of this.
I always love to end the interview with you sharing some microscopic pleasures that you've recently experienced. So let's do that.
A taste: Spanish persimoons
A sound: My son’s language exploding
A sight: Green grass on the West Coast in February
A smell: My morning latte
A touch: Doing my daughter’s hair in the morning
More about Madeleine Natale
Madeleine Natale is a certified executive coach who helps clients reconcile their career ambitions with everything else that matters in their lives.
She partners with professionals, parents and leaders who are navigating transitions, seeking clarity and building sustainable success. She works one-on-one, offers periodic group coaching for working parents, and facilitates workshops that focus on career life alignment.
Website: madeleinenatale.com
LinkedIn: Madeleine Natale
Instagram: Madeleine.N.Coaching
