Mirna Valerio is a native of Brooklyn, NY, a former educator, cross-country coach, ultramarathoner, and author of the bestselling memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress. Although she began running in high school, she recommitted to the sport after a health scare in 2008 and started her blog Fatgirlrunning—about her experiences as a larger woman in a world of thinner endurance athletes— while training for her first marathon. Mirna's athletic story has been featured in the WSJ, Runner’s World, on NBC Nightly News, CNN, and in the viral REI-produced documentary short, The Mirnavator. Her writing has been featured in Women’s Running Magazine, Self Magazine Online, Outside Online, and Runner's World Magazine. In 2018 she was chosen as one of the National Geographic Adventurers of the Year, and most recently appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show, Access Hollywood, and the short Running Through Barriers, produced by LLBean.
Listen in to hear Mirna share:

How she is discerning about who gets her time and energy

Why she is participating in NANOWRIMO and how it’s been transformational to her

What your identity truly is and how it dictates how you interact with the world

How she’s leaning into different parts of her identity and learning new things in this year

How she manages haters

How she steps into fear as she steps into new partnerships, especially her new position with Lululemon

How anxiety shows up for her and how she has learned to manage it

How she helped Will Smith train for a half marathon

The best lesson she learned from Will Smith

Links Mentioned:
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511: Mirna Valerio: The Many Identities of the Legendary Mirnavator

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

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


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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

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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
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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
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865: You’re A Leader, Now What?

The mental load of motherhood is the invisible yet relentless responsibilities, from managing household chores to coordinating family schedules, which often fall disproportionately on mothers. This burden not only involves physical tasks but also includes the (often more exhausting) emotional and cognitive labor of anticipating and attending to the needs of their children and family members.
The Motherload (aka the mental load of motherhood) includes the 175 running lists you keep in your head in every single moment of #everydamnday.
It includes:

every school form you need to sign tonight

how much creamer you have left in the fridge

how many rolls of TP you have in the house

when you need to call your mom

what bills you need to pay by next Wednesday

when the kids have their next day off school

every single email you need to reply to today and which ones can wait until tomorrow

what time the babysitter is coming on Friday

which hotel you need to book for spring break

which of your kid’s friends can’t have peanuts

which of your kid’s friends you need to buy bday gifts for

which socks your kid will NOT wear

how many pairs of clean undies every single person in the household has left before you have to do laundry again

what you’re having for dinner tonight and tomorrow and the next night and the next night and the next night and the next night

which kid will eat crusts

which kid will eat carrots

Have any of the children had any water today?


You are a living, breathing library of information. You are basically hosting an entire internet system right inside your head.
It’s a lot. Too much. So overwhelming and often maddening.
And sometimes downright unfair.
The Motherload is exhausting on so many levels.
I want to give you some hope. But I’m going to warn you that this will require some work (I promise to keep it simple!) on your part. But the work will be REWARDING. The work will lessen the load!
When it comes to The Motherload, we tend to make it really hard on ourselves. We get in our own way over and over. We get stuck in perfectionism and martyrdom, making ourselves completely miserable.
Listen in as I give you 4 methods to manage the madness. These simple methods are going to dramatically improve your life and create space in your head (who doesn’t need more space in their head?!)

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

511: Mirna Valerio: The Many Identities of the Legendary Mirnavator

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