Own It All: The Podcast

To wrap up season 2 of the Own It All podcast, I’m sharing my conversation with the incredibly gifted, socially-conscious, driven, wise, and widely published Charlene Carruthers. She’s a Black queer feminist community organizer and writer with 15+ years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. She’s also the author of the bestselling book Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, and when we spoke, she had just begun serving as a board member for the Women’s March. In discussing what it means to own your power in all aspects of your life, our conversation was both wide and deep. We covered everything from intersectional activism, to staying in integrity while maintaining your boundaries, to reframing the way we look at collective work for liberation. “We shouldn’t see every single thing at every moment as the most urgent thing. Moving only in a spirit of urgency will lead us to only focus on one thing and picking away at ‘the wall

Welcome back to the Own It All podcast! I’m thrilled this week to share my conversation with host of the top-rated and much-downloaded self help podcast Unf*ck Your Brain, Kara Loewentheil. Kara is a Master Certified Coach with a B.A. from Yale and J.D. from Harvard Law, and she has been featured in outlets like Marie Claire, Mind Body Green, MSN.com, and The Huffington Post.  Kara and I talked a lot about perfectionism, thought work, and liberation from the inside out. If your brain could use a little bit of “unf*cking” right now, well, this is definitely the episode for you. Kara even shared a brief step-by-step process you can use right now if you’re trying to neutralize your thoughts. Write down the thoughts — no editing or analyzing! Pick 1 thought and come up with a neutral version of it. Example: transform the thought “My stomach is gross” to the neutral thought “A lot of people have a stomach like mine.” Practice this thought! Repeat it, either aloud or in your head. Make it a habit by using a remind

Well, it’s safe to say we’re living through a time of massive upheaval and dealing with all of the emotional turmoil that comes along with it. Days feel like weeks and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by fear, grief, and uncertainty in the face of this new normal. With all that in mind, this felt like the right time to share my conversation with Ty Alexander. Ty is a best selling author, speaker, podcaster, and wellness blogger who blends radically honest stories with actionable a-ha lessons. We talked about the new entrepreneurial journey and her work with Destination Heal, as well as what it means to choose gratitude over grief and how to set boundaries around the way we communicate our feelings to others. While [our feelings] should have a place in our lives, it doesn’t need to be a place every day, all day. A lot of times what happens in trauma is, we allow those feelings to take over our lives all day. Feeling doesn’t make any changes. Acknowledge your feelings, write them down, journal. But then what’s the

Quick show of hands: who out there is struggling with their time management these days? Yeah, that’s what I thought. This week on the podcast, I’m excited to introduce you all to my guest, bestselling author and Emmy award winning television producer Paula Rizzo. Her books, Listful Thinking and Listful Living, tackle the topics of list-making, stress, and productivity. With so many of us adapting to a new way of working and living right now, Paula is the perfect person to have on the show to share her insights about how to effectively use lists in both our professional lives and our personal lives. “One thing I talk about is creating lists of feelings. How did you feel after you worked with that one client? How did you feel after you took that vacation? Were you actually less stressed, or were you more stressed? So, really tapping into what’s going on with you, how stressed out do you feel in different environments. List making can be used for that as well. It’s not only about to-do’s, it can help to create a

Welcome back to the Own it All podcast! On this week’s episode, I’m sharing my conversation with Kurtlan Massarsky. Kurtlan has worked with the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (aka BAGLY) for 8 years as director of development and marketing. He’s an advocate for animal rescue organizations, and heartily recommends fantasy and urban fantasy fiction. Kurtlan and I spoke during June of 2019, aka Pride Month, so we talked a lot about his work with BAGLY, the challenges that queer youth face, and how to engage in meaningful allyship. Last June feels like a long time ago — to be honest, last week feels like a long time ago — but my conversation with Kurtlan is more relevant than ever. Times of uncertainty and upheaval are especially dangerous for marginalized groups such as LGBTQ+ youth, but small contributions can have massive benefits. “You can never underestimate the power of caring, and putting your money where your mouth is. A lot of these young people have been told in so many different ways that their effort

This week, I’m so excited to share my conversation with Sara Minkara, Founder and CEO of Empowerment Through Integration. ETI is a non-profit committed to developing a more inclusive society by empowering youth with disabilities through direct service programming and by transforming social and cultural stigma against disabilities.  From the time she lost her vision at age 7, Sara experienced two very different worlds. During the school year, she felt empowered by her family and teachers, and lived a full and rich life. When she traveled to visit extended family during the summer, however, she was exposed to a world where her blindness was considered to be a burden or a source of shame. These experiences played a huge role in Sara’s journey and the work that she does with ETI. We talked about her story, what self care looks like for her, and how she stays grounded and humble while pursuing her big dreams of disrupting the narrative surrounding disability. “I didn’t reach what I’ve reached so far because I’m sm

This week, I’m sharing my chat with Nick North, making his second appearance on the show — this time, solo! Full disclosure: this conversation was unplanned and 100% organic, covering everything from microaggressions and how to be a better ally, to balancing boundaries with people-pleasing, to surgery and gender and politics. “All of us have this thing that makes us different. This thing we’re secretly ashamed of, or we thought made us broken. And the truth is, that thing is actually what makes us most beautiful. We spend so much time trying to hide away this thing that is embarrassing or shameful or doesn’t fit. [...] We are all different, and that is what makes us awesome.” I hope you'll enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. Want more from Nick? Find him over at his website and give him a follow on Instagram @epicdanger.  I'll be back next Wednesday with some more season 2 goodness, so be sure to subscribe (if you haven't already) on your podcast platform of choice. See you ne

Welcome to Season 2 of Own It All! I'm so happy you're back for more tips on how to make a difference in your life, and the world around us.  We're kicking off the new season with the one and only Ash Ambirge! Ash is an internet entrepreneur and founder of the Middle Finger Project whose voice has been called “the most memorable on the internet.” I’m so thrilled that Ash came onto the show to share her “sweary” wisdom on dangerous ideas, the curious relationship between guilt and gratitude, radical self-reliance, and the difference between happiness and meaningfulness. “Coming from a small town, I was very scared in the beginning to talk about what I wanted to do. Doing so felt like a slight to other people and I was aware of that. It was a little bit like, by challenging your reality, I’m challenging your decisions too. And that’s a very difficult thing to do because people get into the dream-zapper mode of ‘Who does she think she is?’ Those are the kinds of comments that keep women down.” Want more Ash? I d

If you’ve ever struggled with career burnout, planning your next move professionally, or any facet of owning your career, this episode with Emilie Aries is for you! Not only is she the founder and CEO of the award winning training company Bossed Up, she’s also a podcaster and soon to be first-time author of Bossed Up: A Grown Woman’s Guide to Getting Your Shit Together (which comes out in May). Whether you know what you want, or just know you don’t want what you have right now, Emilie is all about helping women craft happy, healthy, and sustainable career paths. “When you change your identity, you make yourself more likely to take different actions from there on out. If I start to see myself as someone who can speak up for myself — because I did it once, even though it was scary, but people listened and I was validated by that external vote of confidence — I’m going to feel more capable of speaking out. It turns into a snowball effect of risk taking. Being willing to see yourself differently gives you permiss

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt like you don’t have time to do the things that are important to you. What would your life look like if you could truly own your time? To dig into that, I spoke with Sarah Von Bargen, who is committed to helping people spend their time, money, and energy on purpose. Sarah has a wildly successful and long-running blog, Yes and Yes, as well as fantastic online courses like Habit School, Bank Boost, and 18 Scripts for Awkward Conversations. Even after years of reading her blog, she still had wisdom and truth bombs galore to share that blew me away during our chat. So let’s talk time! “How you spend your minutes, hours, and days is how you spend your life. It’s so easy to create loopholes and excuses and to tell ourselves ‘I don’t have time to do that.’ But if we don’t prioritize the things that are important to us, time passes! Time passes whether you spend it intentionally or not. And it sucks to wake up 3, 4, 5 years later and realize you’re not any closer to that thing you s

The desire to do something meaningful and lasting with our lives is pretty much universal — but how do we truly own our legacy? To find out, I spoke with zero-waste fashion designer, youth director of the Women’s March, and coordinator of the Empower Coalition, Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs. In these roles, as well as in her roles as mother, wife and sister, Tabitha is building an incredible legacy by speaking up, and taking actions consistent with her deepest held values. “In all that I do, in the job that I have and the different projects that I work on, the thing that’s most important to me at all times is how I am to the people around me that are there for me. Am I treating them with love and am I finding time for them?” Listen to the full episode as Tabitha shares: What the word legacy means to her (spoiler: it’s not just about building an impressive résumé) Her own moments of self-doubt along the way, and the importance of being willing to pivot Advice for anyone feeling confusion or hesitation about how

Large or small, we all have traumas, triggers, and moments in our past that we wish we could change. But what if, instead of trying to change the past, we could use it as a springboard to create a better future? With that in mind, my guest on this episode is Alexia Vernon, transformational speaking and women’s leadership expert, coach, and author of Step Into Your Moxie. Having overcome childhood sexual abuse, Alexia is outspoken about owning her past without letting it define her. Tune in as Alexia shares her wisdom around: The role of forgiveness in moving on from those experiences The difference between forgiving and forgetting The importance of self-care and laughter in healing from trauma What you can do when you stop trying to change the past, and start owning it “We can’t predict when an old wound will open. But knowing that we do have the tools and we have the history to look back and say, I’ve been resilient before, I can be resilient again, allows us to get through things a little bit more easily.

After years of fangirling over her awesome newsletters, I was so excited to chat with my guest this week, Susan Hyatt. Susan is a master certified life and business coach and the author of the upcoming book BARE: A 7-Week Program to Transform Your Body, Get More Energy, Feel Amazing, and Become Unstoppable. A reformed “professional couch potato,” Susan is firmly anti-dieting — instead, she’s all about helping women get more of what they crave and own their health in the most authentic and sustainable way possible. “Women have plenty of willpower. None of us need more willpower. We really need more pleasure.” Tune in to hear Susan share all about: The point at which she realized she had to take ownership of her health How tiny but traumatic moments from childhood can ripple forwards to your life today What’s really behind those late-night emotional eating binges Power foods, pleasure foods, and how they’re unique to every body The importance of photography and being seen in her outspoken body positivity Susa

If you look up “hustle” in the dictionary, you’ll probably see a picture of my guest this week, Phee Manuel. Together with her husband Bo, she runs 3 pole dancing studios in the Los Angeles area, produces videos so anyone can learn to twerk and pole dance from their homes, and hosts frequent “Sip N’ Paint” nights that have to be seen to be believed. (Spoiler: if you want to improve your male anatomy painting skills, this is the event for you) Phee and I talked about everything from her marriage (#relationshipgoals, anyone?), to the “pole family” she’s created at Romance and Dance. “Surround yourself with people that are going to uplift you, not people that are going to bring you down. Even in business! If you surround yourself with people doing better than you, they’re going to push you. You want the people who tell you to get off your ass because those are the people who are going to push you to do better.” You’re going to love hearing everything Phee has to share: What gets her up in the morning and keeps

This week’s episode with immigrant rights activist Sara Mora is for anyone with big dreams, big goals, and a big heart. In the four years since coming out as undocumented herself, Sara has given speeches, led marches, and authored opinion pieces that have shaped the debate on the DREAM Act — and she’s only 22 years old. From her role in the Women’s March to her massive following on Instagram, Sara is a manifesting pro who truly owns her goals. In this conversation, Sara will share all about: What it means to be undocumented in the United States Her personal journey with activism, from high school to the present day Making the conscious choice to be real, raw, and vulnerable with her followers How visualization and transparency have helped her own her goals — both professionally and personally “I have definitely felt aimless and was not sure of my purpose at 17, to be exact. My biggest piece of advice is get moving! Do not stay still. Take action on the first 1-2 things you love to do. Find mentors via socia

Katherine and Nick North are masters of clear and honest communication — with 5 kids, 3 businesses, a documentary in progress, and a brand new puppy, they have to be! When it comes to owning your relationships (romantic and otherwise), I couldn’t think of a better couple to have on the podcast. From Nick’s transition into life as a man, to changing their names and blending their families, to avoiding burnout and creating “big, bodacious, beautiful boundaries,” these two have so many incredible stories to share. “Part of being human and walking around with an open heart means that sometimes we get our hearts broken open. I think that accepting that as part of the deal, in some ways, is the fastest road to peace.” In this episode, you’ll hear all about: What true partnership looks like, from the little things to the really, really big ones The “number system” Katherine and Nick created to stop fighting about things that didn’t matter — and fight harder for the things that do The lessons Nick learned from his t

Your personal style tells the world something about you even before you say a single word. When it comes to owning your style, choosing your look for the day can bring up a lot of questions. Is athleisure still happening? Should you be getting your clothes tailored? When is it okay to splurge on a wardrobe investment? On the very first episode of the Own It All Podcast, I’ll be talking about all that and so much more with Kimmie Smith, celebrity fashion stylist and cofounder of Athleisure Media. Working in fashion, beauty, and tech, Kimmie is all about “making people look their best, and taking the vision they have for themselves and amplifying it. It’s a form of empowerment.” I had an absolute blast talking with Kimmie, so tune in! You’ll hear all about: Her path from teenage coder, to fit model, to celebrity fashion stylist. Her favorite places to shop for accessories, from national chains like Lord & Taylor to LA designers like Sydney Evan (plus a little bit of love for our hot pants legging). Some of

I'm Andrea Isabelle Lucas, founder of Barre and Soul, and author of Own It All. The Own It All Podcast is all about how to stop waiting for change, and start creating it — because your life belongs to you. I'll be sharing real conversations with some of the most bad*ss women — just like you — about everything from goals, to health, to style, relationships, and more. You can look forward to 8 episodes starting next Wednesday, running weekly through mid-March. To be a part of the conversation, go ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Talk to you on Wednesday!