Being Different with Liz Durham

I read "Yesteryear" thinking it would just be a fun book to read on vacation, and instead it pissed me off enough that I apparently need two episodes to talk about it.

So here's Part 1 of my thoughts. I’m getting into one of the things the book captures so well: the weird tribalism happening between women right now—working moms, stay-at-home moms, trad wives, feminists, influencers, and everyone in between.

Why do we get so angry at women whose lives look different from ours? How much of that anger is actually jealousy, guilt, resentment, or just feeling like we’re failing at something everyone else seems to have figured out?

I talk about my own experience as a working mom, why the perfectly curated trad wife life can be so irritating, what social media leaves out of the picture, and why I think motherhood has become another place where women feel like they have to prove they’re doing it right.

And somehow we also get into $30,000 stoves, nannies nobody admits to having, dead chickens, raccoons, and why there is absolutely no such thing as effortlessly doing it all.

This book gave me a lot to think about, and unfortunately, I’m nowhere near done. Part 2 coming soon...

Purchase "Yesteryear" by Caro Claire Burke 

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

A friend recently told me she wanted to hear about my “cooking journey,” which made me laugh because honestly, it has been a pretty pathetic one.

I went from barely cooking at all, to living on Uber Eats, to becoming slightly obsessed with Martha Stewart and convincing myself that everything needed to be homemade, organic, beautiful, and somehow effortless.

Obviously, that didn’t last.

In this solo episode, I’m talking about how feeding my family has changed as I’ve changed—what I care about now, what I’ve completely let go of, and why I think moms make food way more complicated and stressful than it needs to be.

Because somewhere along the way, I realized the point isn’t to cook perfectly. For me, it’s about slowing down, teaching my kids something useful, eating better when we can, and actually sitting around the table together at the end of the day.

I’m still figuring it out, but I’ve definitely chilled out a lot.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

Mark Taylor is one of my husband Luke’s best friends and one of those people I can never have a surface-level conversation with. Every time I talk to him, I leave thinking about something differently, so I finally decided to sit him down and ask him about all the parts of his life I somehow didn’t know after knowing him for years.

We start with how Mark was raised and why he credits his parents with giving him the freedom to screw up, make his own decisions, and fail while he was still at home. That turns into a conversation about how he and his wife, Lynn, have approached raising their own four kids, why he cares more about who his kids are becoming than perfectly controlling what they do, and why he thinks there comes a point—especially with teenage boys—where a dad’s role needs to change.

Then we get into Mark’s career and the influence his own dad had on the way he thinks about work and risk. We talk about starting a real estate business with two very young kids at home, taking risks without knowing exactly how they were going to work out, and the part of entrepreneurship people don’t talk about enough: sometimes it takes a really long time before any of it starts paying off. In Mark’s case, he says it was probably close to ten years before they saw real financial traction.

From there, we get into real estate, housing, hospitality, homeownership, why the American Dream looks different to younger generations, and how the cost of housing may be affecting everything from wealth building to whether people feel like they can even start families.

And because this is Being Different, we obviously end up talking about family, stay-at-home motherhood, feminism, social media, materialism, faith, and whether our culture is starting to realize that some of what we’ve been chasing isn’t actually making us happier.

This conversation goes a lot of different places, but I think the thread running through all of it is pretty simple: build a life around what actually matters, be willing to take some risks, and don’t be so afraid of failure that you never try anything in the first place.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

Well… surprise. I’m pregnant with baby number four.

After taking about a month and a half off from the podcast because I’ve been exhausted, nauseous, and generally useless, I’m finally back with a solo episode and a lot to catch you up on.

I’m sharing the very unexpected way I found out I was pregnant, why this pregnancy has kicked my ass compared to the others, how we basically survived the summer on The Lion King, and why by your fourth kid you realize you probably don’t need 90% of the baby crap people try to sell you.

Then I get into something else I’ve been talking—and admittedly ranting—about for a long time: school.

Last year I pissed off quite a few people with my opinions about homework, summer packets, overscheduled kids, and the fact that young children desperately need more time outside and more time to just be kids. I was told to calm down, be patient, and understand that change takes years.

Well… some things actually changed.

Mac’s school implemented TimberNook, homework is now optional, and I want to talk about what I learned from the whole experience—because sometimes being the squeaky wheel works.

I also talk about why family dinner matters so much to me, my ongoing hatred of how insane kids’ sports culture has become, why I’m considering keeping Cooper home until he’s six, and some of the parenting decisions I wish I could go back and do differently.

This one is basically a very honest life update on pregnancy, motherhood, school, advocating for your kids, admitting when you got things wrong, and refusing to accept “this is just how we do it” when you genuinely believe something could be better.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

In part two of my conversation with Michaela Barnett, we go straight into some of the most complicated and divisive issues in politics—and somehow manage to have a real conversation about them.

We talk about immigration, ICE, border security, homelessness, addiction, affordable housing, artificial intelligence, rural healthcare, abortion, Gaza, vaccines, and the ideological inconsistencies that exist on both sides. Michaela shares how her experience working in Congress and navigating the immigration system with her husband has shaped her views, while I explain why I feel politically homeless and increasingly frustrated with both Republicans and Democrats.

I also ask Michaela what she could realistically accomplish in Congress, rather than what simply sounds good on campaign material. She shares why she believes AI regulation and expanding rural healthcare could receive bipartisan support—and why politicians need to start solving the smaller issues Americans agree on instead of constantly using controversial topics to divide us.

By the end of the conversation, Michaela asks me directly whether she has earned my vote. My answer is honest, complicated, and probably not what everyone expects.

We do not agree on everything, but that is exactly why conversations like this matter. We need to be able to sit across from people who see the world differently, ask hard questions, listen to their answers, and look for the places where we might actually agree.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

In this episode of Being Different, I sit down with Michaela Barnett for one of the most honest political conversations I have had on this podcast.

I have voted Republican my entire adult life, but lately, I have felt increasingly frustrated, politically homeless, and ready to question the people and systems I once supported without hesitation. Michaela is a Democrat running against Congressman Tim Burchett, and while we do not agree on everything, I wanted to hear directly from her about why she is running and what she believes needs to change.

We talk about what she witnessed while working in Washington, why Congress struggles to accomplish even the things most Americans agree on, and whether leaders can ever put the people they represent ahead of their party. We also get into term limits, corporate PAC money, campaign finance reform, foreign wars, AI regulation, hyperscale data centers, job displacement, and the very broken state of healthcare in America.

This conversation did not magically answer every question I have or change every opinion I hold. But it reminded me that it is possible to disagree about the solution while still recognizing the same problems—and that our leaders should have to earn our votes instead of simply assuming they have them.

Michaela and I had far more to discuss than we could fit into one conversation, so I have already asked her to come back. For now, this is a candid conversation about political frustration, finding common ground, and whether meaningful change is still possible.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

In this episode of Being Different, I’m revisiting the infamous summer packet.

Last year, I got a lot of people fired up when I said I threw Mac’s kindergarten summer packet in the trash. So today, I’m talking through what I meant, what I still stand by, what I probably could have said better, and how I’m thinking about it now that he’s heading into first grade.

This isn’t about doing nothing all summer. It’s about asking what actually matters for our kids. For me, that looks like reading books they’re interested in, learning how to help around the house, cooking, gardening, taking care of animals, practicing independence, and giving them space to follow their curiosity.

I also talk about what I liked in this year’s packet, what I’ll probably skip, why I still don’t love busywork. Plus, why I think kids need more autonomy, more outdoor play, and more room to be different.

And yes, I also share one of my finer parenting fails involving Charlie’s eyebrow. So there’s that too.

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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

This week, I sat down with two of my very good friends and two longtime Knoxville real estate agents, Debaran Hughes and Lucas Haun, to talk about how much the real estate business has changed—and what has not changed at all.

We talk about the old days of magazine ads, postcards, and cold calls, the rise of social media, the Selling Sunset-ification of real estate, and whether AI is going to change the way people buy and sell homes. Spoiler: it already is. But this conversation is really about something much bigger than marketing.

Debaran and Lucas get honest about what actually makes someone good at this job: relationships, experience, availability, hard conversations, knowing the market, and being able to handle the messy stuff before it turns into a disaster. We also talk about pricing homes in a changing market, why not every agent is equipped for this business, and why the human piece still matters more than any drone video, Instagram reel, or AI-generated listing presentation.

Plus, we get into work-life balance, motherhood, mentorship, my strong feelings about realtor content, and a few real estate stories that probably explain why I needed to have this conversation in the first place. 

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Liz Durham Instagram | Website
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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

This week I sit down with my friend Taylor Brasel for an honest conversation about dating, marriage, motherhood, careers, and the pressure our generation feels trying to “have it all.” Taylor is getting married in just a couple months, and hearing her talk about planning for the future with intention honestly gave me hope.

We talk about the conversations nobody really prepares women for, what happens when you have kids, whether you’ll want to keep working, the financial realities of modern life, and why so many couples feel trapped by the lifestyles they’ve built. We also get into daycare, the loss of community, social media’s influence on motherhood, marriage advice we’ve learned the hard way, and why neighbors used to matter a whole lot more than they do now.

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Liz Durham Instagram | Website
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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production

It’s just me this week, and after a complete disaster of a Mother’s Day morning, I had a lot to think about. Between Cooper dumping red dye all over the house, Charlie secretly cutting hair, missing church, and me and Luke ending up in a screaming match over a mattress and some rugs….I realized how much of our stress as parents comes from caring way too much about stuff that doesn’t actually matter.

I talk about the pressure social media puts on moms to have the perfect white house, the perfect kids, the perfect routines, and why I think so much of it is making us miserable. I also share what I’ve been learning from our chickens, our new bees, and why calmness, not control, is probably the thing I need most as a mom right now.

This episode is messy, honest, and probably a little too personal, but if you’ve ever felt like motherhood is exposing every flaw and attachment you have, welcome to the club.

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Liz Durham Instagram | Website
Subscribe Apple Podcast | Spotify

Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production