Making It with Jess Ekstrom

Have you ever held onto an idea so tightly — workshopping it, perfecting it, protecting it — that you never actually put it out into the world?
Have you ever wondered if the path to finding your voice is less about getting it right and more about just getting it out?

Selena Rezvani didn't get to where she is by waiting for an invitation. She got there by writing a typewriter-typed appeal letter to save her college education. By cold-emailing CEOs she had zero connections to. By showing up on TikTok in her forties and going viral in ways she never saw coming. A Wall Street Journal bestselling author, LinkedIn Top Voice, and one of the most sought-after voices on quick confidence and modern leadership, Selena has built her entire career on one foundational belief: you have to be your own vocal champion, because nobody else is going to ask on your behalf.

But this episode goes deeper than the highlight reel. Selena gets raw about her recent journey with PMDD — a diagnosis that rattled her foundations and forced the woman who teaches confidence to find her own footing again. She talks about what it's like to be the student of what you teach, why she believes passing the ball is always a longer game than dunking it, and why keeping the promises you make to yourself might be the most underrated confidence-builder there is.

Tune In For:

• The "seed a forest" strategy — why going viral has nothing to do with the perfect post and everything to do with volume, iteration, and surprise
• Don't tell yourself no before they do — Selena's take on stop overestimating everyone else and underestimating yourself
• The typewriter appeal letter that changed the course of Selena's life — and the lesson about self-advocacy she's been teaching ever since
• "Go after the whales" — the business school professor who told Selena to pitch the CEOs she was sure would say no, and why so many of them said yes
• What PMDD is and what it felt like to navigate a destabilizing health diagnosis while being the person onstage teaching others to be confident
• Why Selena considers herself the supporting role — and why power-sharing instead of power-hoarding is the leadership move most people are too insecure to make
• The male author who passed the ball — a story about allyship, visibility, and why Selena says she'd help him move
• Keeping promises to yourself — and why shrinking the size of a commitment is smarter than breaking it

About Selena Rezvani

Selena Rezvani is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, LinkedIn Top Voice, and keynote speaker on confidence, leadership, and self-advocacy. Her books Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership have reached thousands of readers and leaders worldwide. A recovering "nervous nice girl" turned boldly vocal advocate for women in the workplace, Selena built her platform by doing exactly what she teaches: making bold bets, seeding the forest, and keeping every promise she makes to herself.

Resources & Links

• 📖 Quick Confidence + Quick Leadership: Available wherever books are sold
• 💼 Follow Selena on LinkedIn: Search Selena Rezvani
• 📱 Follow Selena on TikTok + Instagram: @selenarezvani (verify handle)
• 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen

Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom and Walk West

✨ Soulful Sidebar: The Forest, Not the Rose

Selena's biggest lesson about going viral wasn't a formula. It was a mindset shift: stop trying to grow the perfect prize rose. Start seeding a forest.

The posts she thought would land? Didn't always. The ones she tossed off quickly, done hastily and imperfectly? Sometimes those were the ones that changed everything.

There's a version of creative work that's about getting it right. And then there's the version that's about getting it out — articulating the idea, putting it in front of people, seeing what resonates, iterating, surprising yourself. That's how you find your voice. Not in the workshopping. In the releasing.

Whatever you've been sitting on: it's time.

Have you ever realized that the person who shaped you most never once thought of themselves as remarkable? Have you ever sat down with someone you've known your whole life — and learned something that changed everything?

This episode is a little different. Today's guest isn't a founder or a bestselling author or a keynote speaker. She's something harder to find and harder to hold onto. She's Laurie Ekstrom — Jess's mom, Lala to the grandkids, and the woman who quietly, consistently made it possible for everyone around her to go for it. Jess recorded this episode to celebrate the launch of her book, Making It Without Losing It, because Laurie is — in so many ways — what that book is about: finding peace in the present while still believing in something bigger.

This conversation is warm, funny, unfiltered, and at times, genuinely surprising. There's a Waffle House run at midnight. There's a confession about being unplanned. There's the story of a FLaurieda beach, a shared earbud, and a wedding song played during the darkest financial chapter of their family's life. And there's a two-minute message to Jack and Ellie — Jess's kids — that might be the most honest parenting advice in the whole episode.

Tune In For:

• The 2 AM email Laurie sent Jess after watching her first local news segment — and the revelation it sparked about purpose, motherhood, and what contribution actually looks like
• "My brainwaves are so flat I don't think I could work a toll booth" — Laurie's honest account of what the early stay-at-home years actually felt like, and the one thing Jess's dad said that turned it around
• The Bernie Madoff chapter — what it was like when a family betrayal and a financial collapse arrived at the same time, and how Jess's dad responded with a single earbud and their wedding song on the beach
• Why the candy drawer matters more than you think — and what Laurie got right about raising kids with an abundance mindset around food (and everything else)
• The midnight Waffle House run and what it taught Jess about building a home where kids call you first when things go sideways
• Two generations of "go, go, go" — a raw moment about busyness as armor, a silent retreat, and 60+ years of unfelt feelings finally showing up all at once
• What Laurie is still working on at 65 — including a woodworking class she will never take again, and why trying the wrong thing opened up a whole new world
• The advice Laurie wishes someone had given her in high school — and the message she wants Jack and Ellie to carry with them

This episode drops on the same day as Jess's book, Making It Without Losing It — grab your copy wherever books are sold.

Resources & Links

• 📖 Making It Without Losing It by Jess Ekstrom: Available now wherever books are sold
• 📸 Follow Jess on Instagram: @jessekstrom
• 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen

Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom and Walk West

🧡 Soulful Sidebar: What If Your Purpose Was Always the People?

Laurie spent years quietly wondering if she had done enough. Was she contributing? Did she have a purpose? The answer came at two in the morning, watching her daughter on the local news, handing out headbands to kids in hospitals.

She hadn't built a company or written a book. But she had built the person who did.

There's a version of making it that looks like a highlight reel — the launch, the press, the milestone. And then there's the version that shows up in a two AM email, a Waffle House booth at midnight, a shared earbud on a dark beach. The people who love you the loudest don't always have the most accolades. They're just the ones who showed up — every time, without being asked — and made it possible for you to go.

That's Laurie. And if you're lucky, you know someone like her too.

Have you ever realized, only after it was too late, that a person was one of the most important ones in your life? Have you ever found something life-changing somewhere you never thought to look?

This episode is a story Jess has been sitting with for almost five years. Not because it isn't important — but because she didn't yet have the language for what it changed in her. It's about a $20-a-night RV park in Las Vegas with flickering streetlights, nightly helicopter noise, and a check-cashing place on the corner. It's about two strangers who saw Jess's husband eating alone at a picnic table and pulled up a chair. And it's about what happened — years later — when Jess texted to check in and didn't hear back.

Tony and Linda Oyster started as RV neighbors. They became family. And the lesson they left behind quietly reframes everything: the places we go, the milestones we chase, the next thing we're always running toward.

In This Episode

Jess shares the story of Tony and Linda — and why, after three years on the road visiting some of the most breathtaking places in the country, a worn-down Las Vegas RV park is still her honest answer to "what was your favorite stop?" She also offers four small, practical ways to find more meaning inside the life you already have — no big life overhaul required. Because most of the time, meaning doesn't show up at a mountaintop. It shows up in who you're sitting next to.

4 Ways to Practice Intentional Presence

1. Slow your exits. Linger in conversations that matter. Ask one more question — and go one sentence deeper than "how are you?"
2. Treat people like the destination. Outcomes are easy to chase. Relationships are the whole point.
3. Notice who makes you feel more like yourself. Not more impressive. Not more productive. Just more you. Spend more time there.
4. Remember: ambition and presence aren't opposites. You can want more and appreciate what's right in front of you.

Resources & Links

• 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen
• 📸 Follow Jess on Instagram: @jessekstrom

Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom

🪑 Soulful Sidebar: What If the Destination Was Never the Point?

We optimize for places, titles, and milestones. We take the mountaintop photo. We check the box. But Tony and Linda — who spent 15 years on the road, slides and all — weren't remembered for where they went. They were remembered for how they showed up beside a stranger eating alone at a picnic table.

The question worth sitting with: In five years, what will the people around you remember about this season? Not what you accomplished. How you showed up. Who you made time for. Whether you put the phone down.

That's the whole thing. That's making it.

Have you ever made a choice that felt completely right to you — but everyone around you thought you were giving up? Have you ever wondered if slowing down and leaning in could actually be the same move?

Neha Ruch was fresh out of Stanford Business School, climbing fast, and checking every box the Lean In era told her to check. Then she had her son on New Year's Day 2016 — and in the fog of new motherhood, three o'clock in the morning, at the end of the internet, something cracked open. Not a crisis. A clarity. All I need to be is myself. And this kid loves me for it. So she downshifted. Not for her son. For herself. And the world had a lot of opinions about it.

What followed was a decade-long slow build — a Squarespace site, a weekly link roundup, five Instagram posts, and a quiet but fierce belief that ambitious women who make room for family life deserve better than the binary they'd been handed. That belief became a bestselling book, The Power Pause, a movement, and a membership community rewriting what it means to be a high-achieving woman in the messy middle of work and family life. Neha isn't anti-ambition. She's anti-one-size-fits-all. And in this episode, she makes the case that caregiving isn't a career gap — it's a leadership lab.

Tune In For:

• Why Neha chose to downshift after Stanford — and why it had nothing to do with what was "better for her son"
• How motherhood threatens every identity pillar of high-achieving women — productivity, spontaneity, fitness, relevance — and what to do when it happens to you
• The Harvard Business Review research that might be the most healing data point working moms have never heard (spoiler: it's not about hours)
• "Pause within a pause" — what happened when Neha's second child destabilized everything she'd built, and why "keeping the lights on" is a completely valid strategy
• Why the Power Pause didn't hit the New York Times bestseller list — and the honest, still-raw conversation about gold stars, success metrics, and rewiring your own wiring
• How to frame a career pause in a job interview — and what Neha wishes every employer knew about the non-traditional leadership skills caregiving actually builds
• The "write your ideal day in five years" exercise for anyone whose self-worth is tied to their productivity
• Why comparing yourself to others signals insecurity — and the one shift that turns envy into fuel

About Neha Ruch

Neha Ruch is the founder of Mother Untitled, author of the bestselling book The Power Pause, and a speaker and advocate redefining ambition for the modern mother. After graduating from Stanford Business School and stepping back from a fast-track career to raise her children, Neha built a movement — and eventually a membership community — dedicated to showing that professional pauses and downshifts are a strategic, feminist, and deeply creative choice. Her work has helped thousands of women reclaim their identity, their confidence, and their careers on their own terms.

Resources & Links

• 📖 The Power Pause (book): Available wherever books are sold
• 🌐 Free resources: thepowerpause.com
• 💛 Membership community: thepowerpause.com/me
• 📸 Follow Neha on Instagram: @neharuch
• 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen

Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom and Walk West

🌿 Soulful Sidebar: Rewriting the Resume Gap

The cultural image of a woman "on pause" hasn't been updated since the 1970s. We inherited June Cleaver. But today's woman stepping back from the workforce is likely coming in with 8–10 years of professional experience — and layering on skills that don't show up on a LinkedIn profile: crisis management, negotiation, logistics, community building, and a kind of perspective that only comes from being fully responsible for another human life.

Neha's challenge to employers — and to the women themselves: Stop calling it a gap. Start calling it what it is. A power pause. A leadership lab. A season that didn't pause the growth. It just changed the classroom.

Have you ever started something just to make people happy — and accidentally built a business? Have you ever landed your biggest dream moment (hi, Oprah) and found yourself on the other end of it crying... because the crates broke?

Marissa Allen knows both sides of that coin intimately. She didn't set out to be a founder. She was an NFL wife, a former college soccer player, a stay-at-home mom of two tiny humans (one of whom was six months old, crawling around the kitchen), and someone who just really loved baking cookies for her husband's teammates on the Houston Texans. It was a teammate trying to buy those cookies that planted the seed. She was reluctant. Her husband wasn't.

What followed wasn't a clean, linear launch story. It was a $5,000 website (the ancient kind where you still typed in your credit card), a rented commercial kitchen at $20 an hour, Sunday baking marathons, and Monday morning 6 AM flights back from Kansas City with two kids in tow. Today, Cookie Society is a multi-location, nationally shipping, Oprah's Favorite Things-certified, cult-followed gourmet cookie brand with 88 employees — and a breakfast-only March menu that people literally line up overnight to get. They didn't build it by throwing money at it. They built it by doing every single job themselves first, scaling incrementally, and trusting the data.

Tune In For:

• How Marissa accidentally launched a business by baking for NFL locker rooms and getting an offer she almost turned down
• Why opening during a global pandemic was actually grace — and what would have happened if they'd gone full send without it
• The Taylor Swift ticket strategy: how Cookie Society created a holiday around scarcity, seasonal drops, and Cinnamon Roll Sundays to drive demand most brands only dream about
• Daily tears behind Oprah's Favorite Things — the collapsed wooden crates, the angry emails, the call from New York, and the lesson that even your biggest win can bring you to your knees
• Why Marissa knows less now than when she started — and why that's actually a sign you're scaling right
• How she went from hiring people to execute her vision to hiring people to expand it (and why she voluntarily demoted herself from CEO)
• The LinkedIn mirror strategy: how to find someone five steps ahead of you and reverse-engineer their path when you can't afford to hire yet
• Why knowing your numbers is a power move, especially for women founders — and how data turns "maybe we can" into a hard yes or no
• Comparing vs. Inspiring: the one question Marissa asks herself to figure out if she's in a confident season or an insecure one

About Marissa Allen

Marissa Allen is the co-founder of Cookie Society, a Dallas-based gourmet cookie brand with multiple brick-and-mortar locations, a national shipping operation, and a deeply loyal following built on bold flavors, seasonal exclusivity, and an authentic story. A former college soccer player turned NFL wife turned entrepreneur, Marissa bootstrapped Cookie Society from a rented commercial kitchen to Oprah's Favorite Things — and is now scaling toward 10 locations with a team of 88. She runs the business alongside her husband Jeff, who heads up marketing, while Marissa focuses on operations, systems, and the creative vision that started it all.

Resources & Links

• Cookie Society: cookiesociety.com
• Ship the breakfast box or classic bestsellers nationwide
• Follow Marissa on Instagram: @cookiesociety (and her personal brand!)
• Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen

Produced by Walk West - Making It with Jess Ekstrom

🍳 Soulful Sidebar: The Scarcity Mindset vs. The Abundance Play

Most product businesses default to scarcity thinking — I need to keep selling what works. Cookie Society flipped it. By pulling their most beloved items off the menu seasonally, they didn't lose customers. They created a holiday. People mark their calendars. They show up overnight. They order more because they can't choose just one.

The lesson? Abundance isn't about always having more available. It's about confidence that demand will be there when you're ready. That takes trust in your product, your team, and your ability to recreate the magic. Marissa and Jeff saw it first with Cinnamon Roll Sundays. Then they scaled the principle. Now it's a March tradition.

That's not luck. That's a brand with a backbone.

We spend our entire lives avoiding "goodbye." We trade Instagram handles, promise to "catch up soon," and say "until next time"—all to protect ourselves from the discomfort of a finished chapter. But what happens when you lean into the finality instead?

In this reflective solo episode, Jess Ekstrom breaks down a chance encounter at a Colorado campground that changed her entire perspective on presence. When an older traveler told her, "You kids have a nice life," it didn't feel like a well-wish—it felt like a gut punch.

Jess explores the beauty of impermanence and why acknowledging that a moment will never happen again is actually the secret to enjoying it.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The "Until Next Time" Trap: Why our digital age makes it impossible to have true closure and how that prevents us from being fully present.
• The Japanese Tea Tradition: A lesson from a matcha bowl about noticing the "foam at the bottom"—the unique shapes that only happen once.
• Hurry Up and Relax: Jess’s struggle with "sprinting" through the day to get to the "good part," only to find her brain won't shut off once she gets there.
• The Turtle Pace: How walking with toddlers (who stop for every sidewalk flower and power-line bird) is the ultimate masterclass in noticing the extraordinary in the ordinary.
• Don’t Miss It: Why we shouldn't get so focused on creating a "good life" that we forget to actually have a "good day."

Key Quotes:
"The reality is, a 'next time' is never guaranteed. But the comfort in saying next time makes it easier to move on because there's a chance the story isn't over."

"Impermanence isn't a sad thing. In fact, it's the opposite. It's a reminder that all we have is now. So we might as well just enjoy it."

"Sometimes relaxing isn't the reward. It's the work itself."

Featured in this Episode:

• John Acuff: Author and friend who provided the "Don't Miss It" mantra.
• Andy Bernard (The Office): For the bittersweet reminder about knowing you're in the "good old days."

A Challenge for Your Week:

Next time you're in a conversation or a beautiful moment, try to find your "matcha foam." Identify one tiny, specific detail about this exact moment that will never be replicated again.

Have you ever had a dream job—the kind people tell you is the "coolest job in the world"—only to realize that your identity has become so wrapped up in it that you don’t know who you are without the title? How do you walk away from a legacy to build something entirely your own?

Welcome to Making It with Jess Ekstrom. This week, Jess sits down with Lindsay Shookus, the legendary former producer and head of the talent department at Saturday Night Live. After 20 years of discovering stars and managing the chaos of live television, Lindsey made the "wobbly" decision to leave 30 Rock and redefine what success looks like on her own terms.

In this candid conversation, Lindsey opens up about the grit required to survive 20-hour days, the lonely reality of hyper-fame, and the epiphany that led her to co-found Women Work Fing Hard*—a community built on active support rather than just "mentorship."

Tune in for:

• The SNL Hustle: How a girl from Buffalo with "Southern-adjacent" roots at UNC-Chapel Hill landed a job at SNL and worked her way from assistant to talent mogul.
• The Fame Pedestal: What Lindsey learned about success by watching the world’s most famous people up close, and why "street cred" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
• The "Wobbly" Transition: The identity crisis that follows leaving a high-profile career and how to navigate the "data" of who stays in your life when the power of your position is gone.
• Receive the Motherfing Data:* Lindsey’s viral-ready advice on relationships and business—how to stop "waiting to be chosen" and start looking at people's actions as objective information.
• Women Work Fing Hard:* The accidental origin story of her women’s community and why the goal is always "How can I help you?" rather than "Who can help me?"
• The Curse of the Good Girl: Why Lindsey normalizes "bombing" for her 12-year-old daughter and the importance of being uncomfortable to get better.
• Building a Boat: What it’s like for an ambitious woman to find a partner who asks, "How can I best support you?"
• The Art of the Question: Why being a curious mind is the most undervalued skill in networking and life.

About Lindsay Shookus:

Lindsay Shookus is an Emmy Award-winning producer, speaker, and coach. Best known for her two-decade career at Saturday Night Live, she now uses her expertise in talent and trust to advise hedge funds, produce documentaries, and empower women through her community, Women Work F***ing Hard.

Resources & Links:

• Lindsay Shookus’s Website: https://lindsayshookus.com
• Women Work Fing Hard:*
• Follow Lindsey on Instagram: @Shookusshookus 
• The Curse of the Good Girl by Rachel Simmons:
• Making It with Jess Ekstrom is produced by Walk West and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.

How to "Receive the Data" in Your Career

Lindsey talks about treating feedback-and even rejection-as objective data. This shift moves you from an emotional participant to a strategic scientist of your own life.

Have you ever felt like you had to mute your personality, change your style, or "fit the mold" just to be taken seriously in business? What if the very things people told you to tone down were actually your greatest superpowers for building a $100M empire?

Welcome to the premiere episode of Making It with Jess Ekstrom. This week, Jess sits down with Anne Mahlum, the visionary founder of [Solidcore] and Back on My Feet. Anne famously raised $210 million from private equity while wearing see-through crop tops, proving that authenticity isn't just a buzzword—it’s a high-stakes competitive advantage.

In this raw and uncensored conversation, Anne pulls back the curtain on her $100 million exit, why she refuses to be a "one-hit wonder," and how she transitioned from a "starving founder" to a fitness mogul. They dive deep into the "hustle muscle" fueled by early pain, the importance of "happy endings" in business, and the biological shifts of entering her next big chapter: motherhood.

Tune in for:

• The story behind the see-through crop tops and why Anne refused to change her hair or style for private equity partners.
• Why "fake it till you make it" is bad advice and how trying to fit in actually makes you feel smaller and less confident.
• Anne’s three core values—Authenticity, Transparency, and Winning—and how they guided her through $100M negotiations.
• The "Chip on the Shoulder": Why many high-performing entrepreneurs are fueled by a need to prove themselves and the realization that achievement doesn't equal love.
• The $100 Million Exit: How Anne planned her last day years in advance to ensure a celebratory, "non-messy" transition.
• Financial Leverage: Why Anne advises founders to take money off the table early so they aren't "starving" when it's time to negotiate an exit.
• Radical Responsibility: Why claiming "it's my fault" for everything from low energy to a stalled career is the ultimate power move to regain control.
• Relationships and Polarity: Anne’s take on settling into a partnership with her husband as an ambitious, breadwinning woman.
• How to find a "game you can win" by sharpening your unique 8, 9, and 10-level skill sets.

About Anne Mahlum:

Anne Mahlum is a speaker, investor, and the founder of [Solidcore], a boutique fitness powerhouse she scaled to 100+ locations before a massive exit. She is also the founder of the non-profit Back on My Feet. Anne is a dedicated advocate for financial literacy and empowers founders to build businesses that reflect their truest selves.

Resources & Links:

• Anne Mahlum’s Website: https://annemahlum.com
• Follow Anne on Instagram: @annemahlum
• Brene Brown’s Values Exercise:
• Making It with Jess Ekstrom is produced by Walk West and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.

A Note on Radical Responsibility & Starting Blocks

In this episode, Anne and Jess discuss the reality of "starting blocks." While Anne emphasizes taking radical responsibility, she also acknowledges the statistical realities of the business world. For context, women-led startups received only about 2% of total venture capital funding in recent years, and for Black and Latina founders, that number often drops below 1%.

As Anne notes, recognizing privilege or systemic hurdles doesn't mean you stop working; it means you use your position to "lift others up" and change the statistics for the next generation of founders.

What if an algorithm could perfectly articulate the unfair advantages men have in business, and what if that knowledge was the catalyst you needed to completely change your career?

In the season finale on Amplify, Jess sits down with LauraAura, host of the wildly popular Gutsy Podcast and an acclaimed speaker. Laura shares the moment a Taylor Swift song drove her to ask ChatGPT a provocative question: "How would my career look different if I were a man?"

The AI's response—listing everything from earning more money to having faster access to "power rooms"—pissed her off, but also activated a plan. Laura breaks down the five core areas where women are often held back and details the specific, gutsy move she attached to each one, creating a powerful blueprint for other women to follow.

Tune in for:

• The exact list of biases ChatGPT revealed, including:
  • Earning more money (complete with stat ranges).
  • Access to more power rooms.
  • Boldness being seen as confidence, not a risk.
  • Outsourcing and delegating faster.
  • Less self-questioning.
• Laura's five "healthy spirals"—a practical, gutsy move for each bias to help women close the gap.
• Why "pitching full price" is the first gutsy move you need to make to fund outsourcing and regain your time.
• The power of "creating the room" or simply showing up in spaces like you belong there.
• The surprising secret to showing up as your full, bold self on platforms like LinkedIn (hint: it involves getting raw and authentic).
• The best advice for overcoming analysis paralysis and the constant urge to overthink your next step: "Do one thing."
• How to use your "evidence bank"—a track record of your past accomplishments—to eliminate self-questioning and own your worth.

About Laura Aura:

LauraAura is a speaker, brand strategist, and the host of The Gutsy Podcast, where she encourages thousands of women to stop overthinking and start doing the thing they can't stop thinking about. She is known for her bold, direct, and deeply encouraging approach to female ambition.

Resources & Links:

• Listen to The Gutsy Podcast:https://lauraaura.com/the-gutsy-podcast/
• Follow LauraAura on Instagram & TikTok: @thatLauraAura
• Amplify with Jess is produced by Walk West and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.