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This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club, is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, MTV, Al Jazeera, NPR, and many more. Part 2 features the end of our over-two-hour Zoom conversation as well as clips from previous conversations and a special guest, our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke.If you missed Part 1 last week, be sure to tune in: Virgie and I cover dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more. Show Notes:- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcast: Rebel Eaters Club- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and

This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club, is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, MTV, Al Jazeera, NPR, and many more. We met a few years ago through our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke and I’m lucky to call her a friend. This is her second appearance on the podcast. We recorded a conversation last summer and I’ve been eager to talk to her again ever since. We talked over Zoom for two hours and our conversation covered dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more. Show Notes:- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcas

This week I spoke to Brendan Francis Newnam, the former longtime host of The Dinner Party Download, who went on to create and executive produce The Paris Review Podcast. He is the author of the book Brunch Is Hell and (most relevant to this conversation) he’s the host of the podcast Not Lost. It's a travel show Brendan started after the end of both his long-term relationship and his decade-long radio show, The Dinner Party Download.Brendan "found himself on the wrong side of 35, unemployed, single, and with most of his friends ensconced in relationships and parenthood or both." So he took a microphone, hit the road with friends, and his adventure became Not Lost. The premise of the show is Brendan and his friends trying to get invited to a dinner party with locals in each city they visit.We talk about how he made the show and I picked out a few clips that particularly landed with me, including the balance between sharing vulnerably and holding back, how our trauma impacts our openness to relationships, and th

This week’s episode is part two of my conversation with visual artist Kimmy Quillin. In this second half of our nearly-three-hour Zoom conversation, we talk more about her process—how she creates conditions for creativity, incorporating chance in her work, and what she calls intentional chaos. We end the episode with questions I gathered from a bunch of our mutual friends to ask her.Kimmy is one of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. I was excited to talk to her and this conversation exceeded my expectations.In Part 1, we talked about coffee routines and being heliotropic, her influences from her Wisconsin roots and New York City, the realities of living as an artist, and how she takes care of herself through it all. If you haven't lis

This week’s episode is the first half of my conversation with visual artist Kimmy Quillin. We spoke for nearly three hours over Zoom, her from her home in Brooklyn and me here in LA. We begin by talking about mornings, her coffee routines and how being heliotropic, time of day, and color inform her painting. How both her Wisconsin roots and her love of New York City, the city she’s lived in for over a decade inform her work and personality. She talks about working in different mediums, the realties of living as an artist, our mutual love of Craigslist, highs and lows of releasing art and how she takes care of herself throughout it all. She’s one of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. We met before I left NYC and share a bunch of mutual

This episode is a conversation with art advisor, curator, and author Maria Brito about career and creative pivots when things aren’t working, reinvention, using intuition in work and art, the importance of solitude, and much more. She tells me about her trajectory of growing up in Venezuela, moving to the states to go to Harvard Law School and becoming a corporate attorney before making her own career pivot into the art world, where she eventually became a top art advisor.Maria's kindness is always evident throughout and especially in a section towards the beginning where she gives me a real creative advising session after I share about needing a career pivot myself. She gives me gentle and wise advice, which I’ve since been working on. We recorded this a couple of months ago over Zoom and since then, her new book called: How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold is now available everywhere. Show Notes:- Find Maria on the Web | Instagram- Order Maria's book- The Let

This week, a conversation with Sam Salad. As you'll hear, Sam is not only hilarious, but he’s also humble, original, creative, and truly one of the best writers—and especially copywriters—I’ve ever met. As he says about himself, he writes and he makes clothes. Sam with his partner Rebma are the designers behind the LA-based clothing line MEALS. As Sam writes, “the brand prepares non-gendered clothing inspired by food. MEALS bakes ‘food culture’ into apparel, blurring the lines between the clothes we eat and the food we wear.” We talk about that blur between food, bodies, eating, and clothing, and the juxtaposition of these topics led the conversation into interesting and unexpected directions. We also speak about how the timing of their young brand was impacted by the pandemic, collaborating in business with your romantic partner, prizing experiences over objects, body image and food culture much more. We recorded the episode about a month ago from my kitchen table; Sam came over with a bottle of rum and we t

This week, a very important person in my life—Sacha Jones—hosts the podcast. Every year for nearly a decade Sacha has come back on to host the episode the last week of April (the week of my birthday). This year she really outdid herself: she shocks me with questions sourced from my friends and family and a special guest joins us to host a special rapid-fire round. I truly knew none of this was happening beforehand and it felt like the surprise party I’ve always dreamed of. Sacha is one of the most creative, wise, and gentle people I know and our annual catch-ups end up being time capsules of what we’re leaning this year. Prior to her surprises, we cover craving focus while being people who do many things at once. The through-line I keep returning to in answering her questions is how much the little things—like simple routines, easy moments—mean to me. I will be back on the other side of the interview next week but until then I hope this conversation offers you something, that you come away from it feeling the

This week, a conversation with iconic designer Norma Kamali. Recorded over Zoom from her office in Manhattan, we cover her 50-year career, from graduating from FIT with a degree in illustration to working for Northwest Airlines—which allowed her to fly to London on the weekends for only $29. It felt like a time capsule to hear her talk about the cultural revolution in London in the 1960s and how she would bring back pieces for friends, which led her to start a store, and eventually design her own pieces. Soon her designs were worn by Bianca Jagger, Bette Midler, and Cher. But at 29 Norma left her marriage, which meant walking away from the brand she’d quietly built with only $98 in her pocket. But starting over ultimately led her to create a brand with longevity and panache. From her unique sleeping bag coat design (worn by the doormen at Studio 54 and by those standing outside hoping it would increase their chances of getting in) to the now-iconic red swimsuit Farrah Fawcett wore on that famous poster, Norma

I'm sharing a special preview of A Slight Change of Plans, a podcast all about who we are and who we become in the face of change. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who is an expert on human behavior, and she’s here to help us navigate the changes we all experience in our lives. She sits in intimate conversations with celebrity guests like Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves as well as everyday inspirations, like journalist Euna Lee, who was held captive in North Korea for 140 days, and Doctor Richard Harris, who rescued a boy's soccer team trapped deep in a cave in Thailand. You'll also meet change experts — including leading grief therapist Julia Samuel, psychologist Adam Grant, and author Michael Pollan— whose scientific insights will help us make better decisions and live happier, more fulfilling lives. In this preview, you’ll hear Maya in conversation with Christine Ha, the first blind contestant and winner of the reality TV show MasterChef. Christine talks about losing her vision and how she had

This week I spoke with herbalist and author Vanessa Chakour. At 17, a life-threatening accident led Vanessa to heal her eating disorder and work through sexual assault trauma, which in turn led to her becoming a professional boxer, eventually bringing her to New York City where she began studying herbalism. Now, she’s an author and educator who trains others in her field of helping people to connect to their environments. Her work is rooted in the natural world and what she calls our own inner-wild, or our intuitive connection to ourselves.   In this episode we cover the connection between eating disorder recovery and our bodies connecting to nature as well as how consent and anger relate to weeds like dandelion. We get into making herbal infusions and the creative process; writing for emotional wellness; navigating highs such as new relationships and career successes (Vanessa's in one of those highs now); and how to manage the nervous system during both highs and lows. We also discuss her new book, Awakening

Back for the first time in 7 years is my good friend Valerie Chaney. Val is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. Val is hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. It was no surprise when we talked for over three hours, so I’m splitting up this episode into two parts.Val trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, who both have informed her work within healing trauma, mindfulness, meditation, and embodiment, which we spoke about at length in part 1 last week. This second half of our conversation is a bit sillier! We talk more about therapy, what we were like as teens, mean girls, finding your hobbies and creative process, as well as the rom coms and style trends we love from the early 2000s.In addition to her mindfulness work, Val is one of the most talented and creative people I know: she teaches dance, sings in a choir and, most recently, wrote a screenplay, which she discussed at th

Back for the first time in 7 years is my good friend Valerie Chaney. Val is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. Val is hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. It was no surprise when we talked for over three hours, so I’m splitting up this episode into two parts.Val trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, who both have informed her work within healing trauma, mindfulness, meditation, and embodiment, which we speak about at length in this first part. We begin part one by discussing anger—and our problem with expressing it. We cover Internal Family Systems, learning to inhabit your body, embodiment vs. dissociating, attachment styles, fear of being alone, and how to approach all these insights with gentleness. In addition to her mindfulness work, Val is one of the most talented and creative people I know: she teaches dance, sings in a choir and, most recently, wrote a screenplay

Today’s conversation is with author and mindfulness teacher Rosie Acosta. Growing up in East LA in the 90s as a first-generation Mexican-American, Rosie suffered from agoraphobia, panic attacks, and anxiety. After being arrested a few times, at 16, she began to feel disillusioned with her family’s unwavering Catholic faith and soon after discovered meditation and yoga, eventually leading her to her career as a yoga and meditation teacher. Since then, she’s been featured in Yoga Journal, Forbes, The New York Post and more. Rosie and I met over five years ago when she visited Detroit with Yoga Journal Magazine. Recently, we spent a morning catching up, first in an episode of her weekly podcast, then in this conversation, where we cover navigating cycles in relationships, disillusionment and faith, and her new book and the process of writing it. Show notes:- Listen to my episode on Rosie's podcast on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Youtube- Follow Rosie on Instagram- There is one spot open in my creative clinic -- if

This week I spoke to New York Times journalist and author of Blood, Sweat & Chrome, Kyle Buchanan. He reports on pop culture and writes the NYT awards season column, The Projectionist, which he took over from the late great journalist David Carr. Prior to joining The Times in 2018, Kyle was a senior editor at Vulture, where he covered the movie industry. Appropriately, he gives advice on writing and we talk about the craft of interviewing, creating safety in conversation, connection, movies, returning to theaters, and the upcoming Oscars. And of course, we talk about his new book on Mad Max and the process of writing an oral history. Since the episode is shorter than some, I tee it up with a helpful piece of advice from Kyle's predecessor, David Carr. I loved this conversation about connection, pop culture, writing, and collaboration. Show notes:- Check out The Projectionist and follow @kylethomasbuchanan- Order Blood, Sweat, and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road- Terry Gross interview

Today's guest, Nadine Artemis, is known for talking and writing about beauty. Her latest book is Renegade Beauty though she’s probably best known as the founder of natural beauty brand Living Libations. Nadine's journey began by combining vials of essential oils to recreate a perfume she liked for a school science fair. In 1994, she opened North America’s first full concept aromatherapy store, Osmosis, in Toronto. In this conversation, Nadine shares how, during her years of waitressing in grad school, she made products for her coworkers to try, and how she studied the female body in depth, eventually writing her dissertation on the female orgasm. We also get into aging and whether she feels extra pressure to sustain beauty and youth as the face of her brand. Show notes:- Get 10% off your order at Living Libations with code LETITOUT- Get 10% off your order of Primeadine spermidine supplement with code LETITOUT- Find Nadine on Instagram- There are a couple of spots open in my one-on-one creative consulting! If

This week's episode is a conversation with artist Derick Melander. He's a sculptor who works with secondhand clothing to create clothing sculptures that explore the intersection between global consumerism and the intimate relationship we have with what we wear. My dear friend Sacha Jones has known Derick for years through being core members of their Record Club, which started in the late nineties as a place to share music with friends and friends-of-friends.We begin by setting up how we met at a record club on Sacha's roof in the East Village, and the conversation goes on to cover his work, creative habits, navigating change, and much more. We talk about  music nostalgia, clothing, textiles, sharing clothing, consumerism, leaving traces, art school, dream work, friendship, family, relationships, connection, socializing and the power of the neighborhood. Show notes:- Find Derick on the Web | Instagram- Heidi Baker's brand Ozma and her episode on the podcast- The Fresh Air episode with Kirsten Dunst I mention-

Today's episode is part 2 of my conversation with Natasha Zoë Garrett. Genuine, wise, thoughtful and truly one of the most effortlessly stylish people I’ve ever met, Natasha (founder of Roam Vintage) is one of a kind, just like the vintage gems she discovers. She’s incredibly honest, open and vulnerable about her challenges and wins in everything from her career to her mental health. She begins by sharing how she’s feeling now—embodied—which is particularly positive in the context of her history with eating disorders, panic attacks, anxiety and depression, as well as her winding path to sobriety. Natasha lights up a room with her curiosity, kindness and softness. She is beautiful in all ways and I’m happy to call her a friend. In this second half of our conversation, we cover the origin of Roam, inclusivity and the importance of role models, connection, shifting out of her styling career to focus on her business, travel, finding purpose, and more. Last week, we talked about how her family and upbringing infor

Genuine, wise, thoughtful and truly one of the most effortlessly stylish people I’ve ever met, Natasha Zoë Garrett (founder of Roam Vintage) is one of a kind, just like the vintage gems she discovers. As you’ll hear in this two-part episode, she’s incredibly honest, open and vulnerable about her challenges and wins in everything from her career to her mental health. She begins by sharing how she’s feeling now—embodied—which is particularly positive in the context of her history with eating disorders, panic attacks, anxiety and depression, as well as her winding path to sobriety. Natasha lights up a room with her curiosity, kindness and softness. She is beautiful in all ways and I’m happy to call her a friend. We could talk forever so we’re splitting up this conversation into two parts. In this half, we cover how her family and upbringing informed her, her modeling career, finding the good in the difficult, and non-attachment. Next week, you'll hear more about the origin of Roam, inclusivity and the importance

This week I spoke to Cuban-American author Nikki Novo. We've known each other for years and she's been on the podcast before in one of our early episodes. Her many certifications and qualifications include certified hypnotherapist, Reiki healer, ThetaHealing practitioner, and many more. In this episode, we talk about Nikki's recent move from Miami to Asheville and what moving taught her about her identity. We get into intuition and how to use it in decision making, and how improving one area of life can fix other areas too. We explore why we all love talking about dating, love, and sex, and she brings her unique perspective on dating. Nikki recently had me on her own podcast, Soul Led, so if you want more where this came from, check out that episode here. Show notes:- Nikki is offering our listeners 10% off her Soul Seeker course - promo code LETITOUT- Find Nikki on the Web | Instagram | Podcast (my episode here)- Our Breakup Kits are 22% off this month with offer code: valentine- There are a couple of spots