A new year is always a good time to reflect on the state of your current relationships. As I considered which past guests could bring the most value to you as you kick off 2024, I immediately thought of Kat Vellos, who specializes in helping people develop meaningful friendships in adulthood. Sometimes it can feel like a dirty little secret in adulthood, “I don’t have many friends.” So, we keep it to ourselves. This Best Of conversation is an invitation to openly and proudly pursue the friendships you have long been craving in 2024. 
Kat Vellos is a trusted expert on the power of cultivating healthy teams and meaningful friendships in adulthood. Formerly a UX designer at Slack, Pandora, and multiple startups, her work today focuses on helping people design belonging into their lives and workplaces. She is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, TED Talks, Forbes, Real Simple, Communication Arts, SF Design Week, Lesbians Who Tech, and many more.
Listen in to hear Kat share:

The difference between meeting people and actually making friends

The 4 reasons it gets harder to make friends as we age

The specific challenges for moms in making friends

How our relationships evolve (for better or worse) as our various identities evolve

The significance of reciprocity in healthy adult friendships

The important role of curiosity in friendship

How to maintain strong friendships even when you’re on separate life paths

Steps to take to invest in a new friendship

Specific steps we can take to invest in the relationships we want to grow and preserve

Links mentioned:

Connect with Kat: weshouldgettogether.com


Get Kat’s Book: We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships


Kat on IG

Kat on Twitter

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837: Kat Vellos: Secrets to Attracting Better Friendships in 2024

Hosted by the notoriously real and raw Sara Dean, The Shameless Mom Academy is a top-rated podcast for moms who are looking to gain confidence, improve relationships, build better boundaries, cultivate resilience, create joy, and position themselves as a leader in their households, communities, workplaces, and businesses. The Shameless Mom Academy provides inspiration, learning, and stories that guide moms to become more confident and courageous decision-makers and action-takers.  With a deep commitment to truth-telling, Sara and her guests share vulnerable stories that are not often shared between mothers.  You can expect your head and your heart to expand a little with every episode. If you’re ready to overcome mom guilt, reject imposter syndrome, and quit perfectionism, you’re in the right place.  You can count on The Shameless Mom Academy to provide practical advice and simple strategies to make your life a little better starting today. Warning: Sara is known to make listeners laugh and cry and walk away feeling like you just spent time with a new best friend.

Kids & Family

Parenting

Health & Fitness

Mental Health

Melissa Bond is a narrative journalist, poet, and matriarch of Salt Lake City’s Slam Scene. The Salt Lake Tribune and the New York Post have both done features on Bond's book Blood Orange Night, her memoir about becoming dependent upon and then withdrawing from Benzodiazepines. Blood Orange Night was published by Simon & Schuster in June 2022 and was selected by the New York Times as one of the best audiobooks of 2022. Bond has been featured on PBS Story in the Public Square, Radio West, the podcasts Risk!, Endeavors, Psychology Unplugged, The New York Times 
Podcasts, RadioWest and Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books.

Listen in to hear Melissa share:

How a very common medical prescription for insomnia led to full physical dependence on benzodiazepines that led to her rapid physical and mental downward spiral

How she was able to begin to put together the pieces around her unforeseen medication dependence after narrowly escaping harming herself and her daughter in a fall

Her discovery that her myriad of strange physical and mental health symptoms were actually her going through medication withdrawal every single day

Her decision to confront the doctor who massively overprescribed benzodiazepines to her

How the Benzo Harmed Community relates differently to common terminology around addiction 

How the “shadow of shame” impacts people’s recoveries from substance use, substance dependence, and substance abuse

Her advice to moms who are mentally or physically suffering with the demands of motherhood and how they can get help from medical professionals in the most safe and trusting way


Links mentioned:

Connect with Melissa: www.melissaabond.com


Melissa’s Book: Blood Orange Night


Melissa on Instagram

Melissa on Facebook


We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

869: Melissa Bond: The Terror of Accidental Addiction at the Hands of a Negligent Doctor

Mom guilt is one of my favorite topics. Mom guilt is familiar to most if not all moms. However, very few moms consider where this constant guilt and the accompanying feelings of inadequacy come from.  
In this Greatest Hits episode, I talk about mom guilt as a social construct in which women are indoctrinated to think they should feel bad for ever prioritizing themselves, their identity, their careers, or their happiness over their kids.
You know how I know this is true?? Because I know the following:
Dads are not asked, “How do you do it all? How do you juggle your career with your family?
Dads are not asked, “Don’t you feel bad when you have to travel for work and you don’t get to see your kids for 3 days?”
Dads don’t have to internalize messages like, “I don’t know how you work so much. I would feel so bad not being at my kid’s games/practices/plays/recitals.”
When dads consider taking up new hobbies/activities they don’t automatically think, “That would be awesome, but I would feel so bad taking that time away from my family.”
Women are indoctrinated to feel like subpar moms if they prioritize their careers, self-care, or their sanity over their family's needs. Men are encouraged to prioritize their careers and hobbies over their family's needs - “Climb that corporate ladder!” “You gotta start golfing with us, man!” “Meet us every Saturday for pick-up basketball!”
I am inviting you to take a look at the guilt you carry. Guilt of any kind is not productive. It keeps us stuck. It holds us back. It does not serve any positive purpose. So, if you’re spending time stuck in mom guilt, you’re wasting time and energy that could be used for so many other positive things in your life.  
In this episode, I talk about how we can flip this social construct on its head to protect our energy, gifts, and rights to rest (yes, you will rest more when you stop feeling so damn guilty.) If you’re ready to reject mom guilt, this episode is for you! 

Links mentioned:
Book: Drop The Ball by Tiffany Dufu


We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

868: Unmask the Mirage of Mom Guilt

Alyson Baber is a mom, wife, and tenured sales leader with experience in both startups and major public enterprises. Her background spans chemical engineering, medical device and capital equipment field sales, tech sales, and advisory roles. Currently, Alyson serves as the VP of Commercial Sales at Outreach. Previously, she held roles as the Head of Sales at Melio and helped Zoom scale from $50M to $4B in revenue. Prior to that, she led new business and expansion sales at SendGrid (now Twilio) and various startup teams within Intuit.
Alyson has a passion for leadership, problem-solving, data analytics, and creating clarity and process from chaos. Because she can't say no to a good challenge, she's been an advisor for multiple startups and is an LP at Stage2 Capital.
Alyson lives in Colorado with her husband, two children, and a puppy named Baxter (yes, from Anchorman). In her free time, she enjoys taking advantage of all things Colorado, traveling, having a creative outlet through multiple art mediums, and attempting to learn to ski well past the level of her comfort.

Listen in to hear Alyson share:

How healing her eating disorder in her teens and twenties shaped who she is today as a woman and leader

How her eating disorder was a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and ambiguity 

How she got affordable and effective eating disorder help in a surprising place - ultimately allowing her to be in recovery for 15 years now

How her recovery impacts how she shows up in personal relationships and leads in professional spaces

Her and her husband’s winning decision for him to stay home as their kids’ primary caregiver while she pursues executive leadership roles

How she is consciously building her own leadership brand

What a leadership brand can look like for highly effective leaders

How she navigates her desire to be respected vs being liked


Link mentioned:
Connect with Alyson on LinkedIn

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

867: Alyson Baber: The Intersection of Eating Disorder Recovery, Motherhood and Leadership

How are you at holding space for tension? The discomfort of tension in our lives can make us rush through a trying moment to get out of discomfort as quickly as possible.  
What would change for you if you could embrace discomfort and sit in it for a minute?
In this Greatest Hits episode, I talk about an interview with Oprah and Steven Pressfield for SuperSoul Sunday. They were talking about resistance - and that resistance MUST exist in all opportunities that provide growth, evolution, and magic.  
Steven said, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the life unlived within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” 
Wow, if that doesn’t speak to my soul.
I see so many Shameless Moms working to hold space for tension and practicing embracing the resistance. It is in these spaces that some of life’s most powerful lessons and moments come to exist. It is profound and life-altering.  
And I see Shameless Moms who feel the resistance and take it as a sign that something is not meant to be. 
Mama…. NO.  
I want you to lean into the resistance. See it. Embrace it. Own it. Walk through it. It will change you - in all the BEST ways.  
Listen in to hear me share the 3 phases of holding tension that will allow you to walk through resistance, find your power, and declare a magical VICTORY on the other side. 

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

866: Embracing the Tension Between Magic and Discomfort

The day you became a mom you were catapulted into a new leadership role with no training and dire consequences if you couldn’t rise to the occasion. For months, you stumbled, fumbled, and slowly figured this new leadership role out. You learned new skills, you learned how to take care of those you were leading, and you advocated for those in your care at every turn. You felt protective in a way you have never felt protective before. You knew it was on you to figure this out quickly. And, you did it.  
Over the last couple of years, as I’ve had conversations with women in new leadership roles, I‘ve heard over and over about how hard it is to step into a new leadership role with little or no training. It’s overwhelming, disorienting, and exhausting. There are so many things to figure out - some inconsequential and some largely consequential. In many instances, folks who were once your peers are now the people you have to give hard feedback to. You have this sense that all eyes are on you - and maybe, just maybe, some folks would be happy to see you fail. So, there is no room for mistakes. And, it seems, no room to give yourself grace.  
As I stepped into community leadership roles over the last few years, I was excited to give back, make a difference, and have a voice. But having a voice feels scary AF when you go to open your mouth for the first time in front of a new audience. How can you instill quickly build trust and demonstrate integrity? How can you solicit support while sharing new ideas and opinions?  
Most opportunities to lead come too fast. You feel ill-prepared. You question if you are the right person or the right “fit” for the job. You are. You’ve been here before. You’ve figured it out. And, you’re sure as hell going to figure it out this time too. 
In this episode, I talk through why owning the title of leader might feel conflicting to you, 3 key responsibilities in any leadership role, and what to do when you find yourself in a leadership role that you don’t feel totally prepared for.  

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

837: Kat Vellos: Secrets to Attracting Better Friendships in 2024

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