Best of the Week + fraternité!
Hey friends,
We know you have a couple million podcast options, so we wanted to send a little summary of what you can expect if you generously open up your podcast app to listen to us:
We are three moms, sharing our stories, guest interviews, books & ideas to help you navigate your career, family and the day. We believe we all have a path that is meant for us, but getting to a place where we are living in alignment with who we were meant to be, but you know that taking care of our families, ourselves, our finances and life is a daily saga. When you listen to us, we will give you a new perspective or idea, introduce you to fascinating people, make you smile or help you realize you are never alone. When you are openminded, even the smallest shifts in mindset, can change the course of your entire life. We seek to curate important news and stories that you are too busy to find. We're kind of like the Target of podcasts, or an audio version of the View. with something for every part of your life, even things you didn't know you needed.
We interview people who want to share their successes and gritty details of their biggest struggles. As moms, and news junkies, alongside books, philosophy and parenting woes, we also cover current events. Our topics range from raising kids and teenagers, global affairs, aging parents, investing, Netflix, where to live, real estate, kid drama, elections, books we have read, relationships, mental health, the meaning of life and skincare because isn't that what you would talk about with your friends over wine? We are just getting started on our midlife adventure, so let’s carpool into midlife together! Follow us on Instagram @meantforit or reach out to us at contact@meantforit.com
Liberté, égalité, fraternité!
We hope you are enjoying the last weeks of summer and we hope the olympics will bring more light, and hope to all!
We are taking a summer break and will be back in August with lots of surprises. Reach out to us anytime at contact@meantforit.com
-Polina, Yelena and Amber
PS: life really does begin at 40 (for most of us, and that must mean Taylor is just getting warmed up!)
and, please don’t forget to follow us on Instagram ( or risk FOMO )
A few podcasts we recommend: If you don’t have time to listen, read the brief excerpts and save for the future :)
MENTAL HEALTH
This is a powerful episode about addiction. BigDeal: From Broke Alcoholic to Multi-Millionaire | Rich Roll, Jun 11, 2024
Rich Roll and millions of others have gone to AA and transformed themselves with a sober life. You can do it also. If someone you know struggles with an addiction - AA works. Drive them to a meeting. In big cities, there will be meetings every evening.
Check out this list of celebs in AA
“The problem resides within the individual. It is a sense of dis-ease with oneself, a sense that your emotions and your sort of disposition is so uncomfortable that you are literally willing to go to the ends of the earth to feel differently. And the path to feeling differently can be found in one of these substances.
It can be found in shopping, in relationships, in gambling, in porn, in sex, you name it. Anything to take you out of your state and allow you to numb that emotional dis-ease with something external is the very nature of addiction. And I think when you are struggling to feel compassionate towards someone who suffers, it's important to disassociate the behavior from the individual.
Because this compulsion and this obsession is so powerful, it overrides every instinct within that person around self-preservation or ethical behavior. And they are acting in opposite to who they are because that craving, that demand, that discomfort is so powerful that it's driving that unhealthy behavior pattern. And it's very difficult to help somebody who is in that state.” - Rich Roll
Narcissism: we went real deep with Dr. Ramani on this topic. Honestly, this should be taught as early as middle school.
Educate yourself, tell your kids and your friends about the warning signs. If they land in a narcissist’s trap they are never alone. It happens to all of us. Dr. Ramani’s advice can help them escape.
-Dr Ramani on dealing with the narcissists in your life
-Dr. Ramani’s guide to dealing with naricisisists at work
-Dr. Ramani’s guides to divorcing a narcissist
BOOKS
“I think the polarization in this country has really shaped journalism. And so it feels to me that literature and storytelling is the last frontier. This is how we can know who we are.
This is how we can know how things feel. This is how we can understand human motivation. And if we have sensitivity readers who are saying, well, take that out, because so and so is going to be offended, how we're going to tell lies.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
From Kelly Corrigan Wonders: Go To on this Tricky Cultural Moment with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jul 26, 2024
FAMILIES
From Coming In Hot: MOVE OVER MOM GUILT, LET’S DISCUSS DAUGHTER GUILT, Jul 22, 2024
Do not miss this conversation with Caroline Baudino about life in her fifties and deciding to live with and take care of her mom.
“You have your kids growing up, you've got your parents' health and taking care of them. You have family and friends going through so much. I know, we all know here, we've all lost friends, we've all lost family members, death is prevalent, illnesses is prevalent, and we're dealing with divorce, kids having issues, like shit gets real.
This is not like, oh, some bullshit little like, oh, he didn't poop today. You know, now it's like you're praying to God that your kids don't get addicted to drugs or that they don't, you know, they're in so stressed that they want to hurt themselves. Like that, you know, you want to protect your kids from, I mean, the stress that comes as they get older and then add your parents, that's why they call it the sandwich years, because you're sandwiched between so much responsibility, right?” - Caroline Baudino
Why we should prioritize daily family dinner
From Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting: 176: Encore: My Child is Turning Into a Teenager. How Do I Handle It?, Jul 9, 2024
If you have a teenager, Lisa D’Amour should be on your top 5 top podcast list. She understand teens as well as Judy Blume. It’s a gift and she is sharing it.
“You're annoying because you hold the line. 13, it takes on this very personal, I don't like the way you live your life, whether it's how you wear your glasses on the top of your head, whatever it is. It's these dumb, petty things.” -Lisa D’Amour
POLITICS
From TRIGGERnometry: It's Political Extremism All the Way Down - Konstantin Kisin, Jul 26, 2024
“This is largely a product of the fact that left-wing extremism is never actually described as extremism.”
From TED Talks Daily: Why young people are worse off than their parents — and what to do about it | Scott Galloway and Chris Anderson, Jul 18, 2024
As usual, Scott Galloway offers brilliant insights and suggestions for fixing higher education, social security, the great wealth transfer, income-based affirmative action, childcare,
From TED Talks Daily: Why young people are worse off than their parents — and what to do about it | Scott Galloway and Chris Anderson, Jul 18, 2024
On higher ed:
“And here is a memo to my colleagues in higher ed. We're public servants, not fucking Chanel bags.
Harvard is the best example of this. They have increased their endowment in the last 40 years and have decided to expand their enrollment, their freshman class, by four percent. Any university that doesn't grow their freshman class faster than population that has over a billion dollars in endowment should lose their tax-free status because they're no longer in higher education.
They're a hedge fund offering class.”
“Expand college enrollment and vocational programs, mental health, ban phones in schools, invest in third places, big brothers and sisters programs. We need national service. We need to tell people in the United States and Canada that they live in the greatest countries in the world, and we need to remind them of that every day by exposing them to other great Americans where they feel connected tissue.” - Scott Galloway
From Fresh Air: The Dictator Playbook, Jul 23, 2024
Fascinating conversation with Anne Applebaum on autocracies in our world:
“Much of it is also to do with people becoming engaged in public life, in understanding what's happening, not just voting, but participating. What autocrats, whether they're in American politics or in Russian politics or in Chinese politics, what they want is for you to be disengaged. They want you to drop out.
They want you to become overwhelmed. They want you to say, I can't do anything, it's all hopeless. It's very important to remember that our ideas are better and our system is better, however flawed it may be.
I'm sure you could do another whole radio program about the flaws of the United States and our democracy. It's still better than the autocratic world. And I should also say, it's still the case that our ideas are the ones that people in the autocratic world wish they had.” - Anne Applebaum
Why you are seeing childless cat lady posts
Paul Krugman article on the cat lady comment
“As I see it, one of the great virtues of modern America is the freedom it offers its citizens to decide for themselves how to live their lives — a freedom, ironically, that Republicans used to tout all the time. And I see the increase in women’s freedom, including the protection of their right to decide whether to have children, as something that benefits all of us — men included.”
BUSINESS
From The Marie Forleo Podcast: 404 - Will You Be Successful? Barbara Corcoran Reveals ‘The Tell’, Jul 16, 2024
Barbara Corcoran, on the need to create scarcity in your business, traits she looks for on Shark Tank, doing everything you can for good employees , and the best way to let go of employees. If real estate salespeople couldn’t close a deal in three month, they were out.