French Kissing Life

What if “I’m just not that kind of person” is one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves?

Sara Torpey is the creator of the Uncomplicating Business Lab and Selling for Weirdos, where she helps teachers, helpers, and givers make business and selling a whole lot simpler. But Sara’s philosophy applies to so much more than business, because we humans are remarkably talented at making things complicated. We decide we’re bad with money, or not a salesperson, or simply not the kind of person who does certain things. Sara has a phrase for what’s really going on there, and it’s the one line I’d want everyone to walk away with.

We talk about the planning cave, why sometimes we have to stop researching and preparing and just pick up the pencil, and why selling is something all of us do, whether we’re asking someone to buy something, take a chance on us, consider our idea, or come to our party. As an extra bonus, Sara’s dog makes an early appearance sprawled belly up on the couch, demonstrating that perhaps the rest of us could stand to be just a tiny bit more unbothered. For anyone who has ever said “I’m just not good at that,” or made something approximately 47 steps more complicated than it probably needed to be, this one’s for us.

Topics Covered:

• What a cave with fur rugs, cozy fires, and hot chocolate has to do with never getting started.
• The sticky note on Sara’s board that decides when she’s learned enough.
• Why selling shows up everywhere, from eighth grade math class to the grocery store chicken nugget debate.
• Throwing a party as a surprisingly useful way to think about invitations and RSVPs.
• The six-sided die Sara keeps on her desk for the moments when no feels personal.
• Joyful weirdness, prime number pricing, and how we legislate the fun out of our lives trying to do things the right way.
• Belonging as a choice, and what it takes to build community as an adult.
• The little bell that rings when something is more complicated than it needs to be.

Connect with Sara!
Website: https://www.torpeycoaching.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saratorpey/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saractorpey
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncomplicatesuccesswsara
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sara.torpey
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UNcomplicatingBusiness

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

It started with free coffee on a Monday morning. A friend invited Natalie Lozano Trimble to the opening week of a new coffee shop in Fort Worth, the kind with no to-go cups because the whole point is to sit down and talk. She ended up at a medium-sized table with six women, three of them strangers, plus her five-year-old. Somebody said, "We should try this again." That was February 2020, and more than six years later, they still meet on Thursday mornings.

Natalie is a freelance writer and co-host of the Awkward Moments podcast, and she's honest about how awkward adult friendship can feel, including how awkward she feels inside it. We talk about what carried this group through a pandemic, new babies, two moves, and one very bad morning in February, and why she thinks the answer might be simpler than we expect.

Topics Covered:

• The community-first coffee shop that started it all.
• What happened after someone said, "We should try this again".
• Keeping a weekly coffee date alive through COVID, virtual mornings, and a fenced-in patio full of kids.
• The morning Natalie broke both ankles and what her friends did next.
• Why she's a little wary of people who seem "too nice".
• Crying at the coffee table and sharing the things nobody posts online.
• How a running joke about awkward moments turned into a podcast.
• Making the first move as an adult, and the email she worried made her look desperate.

Connect with Natalie!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natawriter/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

Before we call ourselves procrastinators, maybe we should ask what we're actually avoiding. When something matters to us, and we still can't move on it, it's easy to decide the problem is us.

Evangeline Garreau sees it differently. She's a creative project coach who helps artists of all kinds bring the things they imagine into reality, and she doesn't start with discipline or time management. She starts with what she calls the thing under the thing: the fear, shame, or need hiding beneath whatever we've been avoiding.

We talk about how to tell the difference between fear and genuinely not wanting something anymore, and why our bodies may recognize what's holding us back before our brains do. Maybe the way forward starts with getting curious about why some part of us doesn't want to move in the first place.

TOPICS COVERED

• The sneaky ways avoidance shows up, including the one that sounds most reasonable.
• How to tell the difference between fear and genuinely not wanting something anymore.
• Why the body may know what's holding us back before the brain does.
• How ridiculously small goals can get us further than ambitious ones.
• Evangeline's unconventional path to creating her own dream job.
• What being fired and laid off taught us about work and identity.
• What a sustainable, humane creative practice actually asks of us.

Connect with Evangeline!
Website: https://www.evangelinegarreau.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evangelinegarreau/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

What if remembering that we're going to die could actually make us better at living?

Chloe Markham calls herself a philosopher of joy, and she's fascinated by what it means to live a genuinely enjoyable life in a culture built to measure, optimize, and improve every part of being human. This conversation gets into why mortality might make joy feel more urgent instead of less, and why calm can start to feel unfamiliar once stress becomes the thing we know best.

We also talk about the autopilot most of us are running on without noticing, what it actually takes to reconnect with what our bodies are telling us, and the difference between real growth and treating ourselves like a project that's never quite finished. And somewhere in there, we land on a much simpler question than the one we usually ask: what if instead of building our best life, we started living our favorite one?

TOPICS COVERED

• Why mortality might make joy feel more urgent, not more morbid.
• How stress becomes such a familiar baseline that calm starts to feel unfamiliar instead of restful.
• The sensory practices used to interrupt autopilot.
• Why movement might need to come before meditation, not after.
• The safety wrapped up in overworking, and where that pattern can trace back to.
• The difference between real growth and treating ourselves like an unfinished improvement project.
• What it looks like to treat friction as a signal instead of pushing through it.

Mentioned in this episode:
Ikigai (生き甲斐), pronounced ee-kee-guy.
Roughly translates to "a reason for being." It's the Japanese concept of what makes life worth getting up for each day, the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. In everyday Japanese use it's simpler than that: it's just whatever gives your life meaning or purpose, big or small.

Connect with Chloe!
Website: https://www.chloemarkham.co.uk/
Substack: https://chloemarkham.substack.com/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

What if imagination isn't something we lose when we grow up, but one of the most powerful tools we have for changing our lives? My guest today is Sarah Bush, a mixed media artist, writer, and creative activist who believes imagination is our greatest human superpower.

Sarah and I talk about why so many adults lose touch with their imaginations, and get personal about perfectionism, burnout, and learning to trust ourselves. This conversation is about staying open, loosening our grip on certainty, and remembering that sometimes the way forward begins with allowing ourselves to imagine that another way is possible.

Topics Covered:

• Why so many adults lose touch with their imagination as they grow up.
• The real difference between artistic skill and creativity.
• Why the messy middle of the creative process feels so uncomfortable, and why it's worth staying in it.
• How worry might actually be an overactive imagination pointed in the wrong direction.
• Protecting our imagination from being hijacked by fear and outside narratives.
• Letting go of perfectionism without letting go of high standards.
• Trusting ourselves enough to stay in ambiguity instead of rushing past possibility.
• What becomes possible, personally and collectively, when we actually use our imagination.

Connect with Sarah!
Website: https://www.sarahbushartworks.com/
Substack: https://substack.com/@sarahbush

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

Coruscating. It's the only word big enough for today. NASA used it in an Instagram tribute to Dolly Parton, and it stopped the scroll completely. It means flashing brightly, sparkling, showing brilliant cleverness, and there's no better word for a woman who never did anything quietly.

This episode was supposed to be a true crime deep dive. Then Dolly Parton died, and everything else had to wait. What follows is a love letter: the stories, the quotes that make you laugh and then immediately tear up, and the evidence of a woman who figured out how to live in a way most of us are still trying to crack. She was French Kissing Life in human form, rhinestones and all.

Topics Covered:

• Why NASA's use of the word "coruscating" sparked this entire tribute episode.
• The plus-65 favorability rating that made Dolly a rarity in American public life.
• Her one-room childhood in the Smoky Mountains and the woman in town who inspired her signature look.
• Turning down Elvis, crying all night, and what happened when Whitney Houston recorded "I Will Always Love You".
• How the Imagination Library grew from one Tennessee county to five countries and over 325 million books mailed.
• The Gatlinburg wildfire fund and how fast she moved to help families rebuild.
• The quiet million-dollar donation to Vanderbilt that helped fund the Moderna vaccine.
• Brandi Carlile's tribute and the real story behind the song that became her own farewell.

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

Unstructured time is something most of us have gotten pretty uncomfortable with.

My guest today has deliberately built her own life around it, not as another productivity hack, but as a space to think, wander, get bored, follow an idea, or simply do something without needing it to accomplish anything. Abbey Harlow is a nonprofit strategist and facilitator who works with small and rural organizations, helping overstretched teams move from survival mode toward more clarity and sustainability. She works a maximum of fifteen hours a week and intentionally leaves large chunks of her life with absolutely nothing scheduled.

In this conversation, we talk about why doing nothing can feel so uncomfortable, what chronic busyness does to our brains, the difference between individual and systemic burnout, why the best ideas rarely arrive when we're trying to force them, and the underrated art of slow puttering. We also get into a bigger question: if so much of our identity and worth has become tied to what we produce, what might we discover about ourselves if we stop trying to make every minute useful.

Topics Covered:

• Why unstructured time isn't the same thing as an empty calendar.
• The years-long path from a late ADHD diagnosis to building a fifteen-hour work week.
• Why stillness and boredom get read as falling behind.
• The real difference between individual burnout and systemic burnout.
• Why the best business ideas tend to show up in the car or on a walk, never at the desk.
• What slow puttering actually looks like, from folding laundry to wandering TJ Maxx on a Wednesday afternoon.
• Small ways to reclaim pockets of unstructured time without redesigning an entire life.

Connect with Abbey!
Website: http://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com
Rural Nonprofit Leader Summit: https://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com/rural-nonprofit-leader-summit
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harlownonprofitconsulting/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

Could anyone really narrow their passions down to one answer? And why do we assume they're supposed to? As kids, being interested in everything is a good thing. Playing the trumpet, joining the science club, trying theater, deciding to be a marine biologist on Tuesday and a novelist by Friday. Then the message changes. Pick a major, find your niche, stay in your lane. But what if some of us were never meant to? Today's guest, Sara Kobilka, calls herself a Renaissance woman. She's been a meteorologist, journalist, science educator, executive director, fitness instructor, career coach, and community builder, with probably a few more titles added since this conversation was recorded.

This conversation is about what happens when that complexity stops being treated like a problem to solve. It covers the pressure to specialize, the grief of never having time for every curiosity, why not now doesn't mean not ever, and the freedom in being what Sara calls a walking Venn diagram. Maybe the goal was never landing on one thing. Maybe it's building a life big enough for everything that makes a person feel alive.

Topics Covered:

• Why Sara chose Renaissance woman over multi-passionate, and where that identity took root in high school.
• The pressure inside higher education and specialized careers to go deeper, not wider.
• Grieving the things there's never enough time for, and thinking in seasons instead of one fixed identity.
• Small ways Sara fills her own cup, like a monthly choir drop-in or five minutes of exercise with an accountability group.
• Why multi-passionate people find each other, and how sharing resources became a kind of love language.
• The exhale that comes with dropping the pressure to fit into one box.
• Sara's Renaissance community and offerings for people finding their own golden thread.

Connect with Sara!
Website: https://renwomanconsulting.com/
LinkedIn | Sara Kobilka: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-kobilka/
LinkedIn | Renaissance Woman Consulting: https://www.linkedin.com/company/renaissance-woman-consulting
LinkedIn | Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/connecting-the-dots-with-the-renaissance-people/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RenWomanConsulting
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_ren_woman
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/renwoman.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@therenaissancewoman

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

Remember when poking someone on Facebook was considered a legitimate form of communication? Today's guest is Brian Feister, a community builder, engineering leader, and the founder of Meet Near Me, a platform built to help people discover local gatherings and actually show up for real life. At first glance, this conversation is about friendship and community, but underneath that, it's really about something much bigger.

Somewhere along the way, we became obsessed with optimizing everything, our schedules, our productivity, even our relationships. Technology promised to save us time, yet somehow many of us feel busier, lonelier, and less connected than ever. Brian and I explore why making friends as adults feels surprisingly difficult, what happened to the lost art of simply hanging out, why third places matter more than we realize, and whether convenience has quietly replaced community. Along the way we also land on one of the funniest detours I've ever taken in an interview, yes, Facebook pokes make an appearance.

Topics Covered:

• Why human connection became a lifelong pursuit for Brian, tracing back to being bullied and a hard truth from someone he was dating.
• The difference between community, friendship, and what it actually means to feel understood.
• The "you're guaranteed to let your kids down" advice that changed how Brian thinks about sacrifice.
• Why social media became a failed experiment in trying to stay connected to everyone at once.
• What third places are and why losing them made adult friendship so much harder.
• How a culture of optimization quietly made it feel impossible to just hang out.
• The idea behind Meet Near Me and building what Brian calls anti-social social media.
• Brian's one habit anyone feeling disconnected could start this week.

Connect with Brian!
Website: https://meetnear.me/ 
Podcast: https://realmeetpodcast.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeister/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]

What if the scariest decision you make is also the one that finally makes you feel like yourself again?

My guest today is Yvonne Hemmings, a life coach, virtual assistant, digital marketer, and full-time van lifer. Just two years ago, at 58, she sold her house, gave away nearly everything she owned, and moved into a camper van. Not because she'd always dreamed of van life, but because staying the same had started to feel more frightening than starting over.

We get into what led to that decision, what freedom actually feels like once you have it, why boredom isn't something to avoid, and how it's never too late to redesign a life that no longer fits. This one is about choosing yourself, embracing uncertainty, and remembering that the biggest adventures don't come with an age limit.

Topics Covered:

• Why staying the same finally became scarier than starting over.
• Leaving a 24-year marriage as the first step in a much longer transformation.
• What freedom actually felt like in the first weeks on the road.
• Letting go of people pleasing and learning how to just be.
• Finding an unplanned home on a small olive farm in central Portugal.
• Why she stopped avoiding boredom and what it gave back to her.
• Building real connection and community while living on the road.
• Her plan to turn the Portugal property into a retreat for women.

Connect with Yvonne!
Free house vs. van financial worksheet: https://stan.store/lifebetweenthewheels/p/the-vanlife-decision-guide

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifebetweenthewheels
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifebetweenthewheels
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61585356466813
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonne-hemmings

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at [email protected] 

Until next time, muah! 

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: [email protected]