It's tradition when someone comes to the closet that I bake them something to bring home to their family...So you can imagine my surprise when today's guest brought ME something...a very special something in fact: Childish plates for my kiddos. Meg Duff is the CEO of Childish plates - a company she started because she just wasn't happy with the plastic alternatives out there for feeding kids. She was the goldilocks of plates: not dishwasher safe. Not microwave safe. Not cute. Not practical...the list goes on. So she took her high achieving self, a machine fine tuned by years of highly competitive sports, and applied all that gumption to a new game: business. If you're a sports family or you yourself were a sports kid - this episode gives a lot to chew on: What happens once a competitive chapter of sports ends for a person? What's it like for a kid to grow up in a household with a professional athlete at the dinner table? If you're not a sports person, maybe you're a parent who gets frustrated by the market missing out on something you want/need in your life. Listen to how one mutha is tackling it head on. If you're none of those things, surely you're a person who has had to withstand chapters of change and recalibration in your life - this chat is for you. 

Full show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life @childishplates

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa 

Today we are hanging out with Betina Gozo Shimonek, Nike Global Trainer and women’s strength training guru. We follow Betina from her first years in the Philippines to a small town in Indiana to wild child bassist in a band and then on to her chapter where she can’t stop shining - elite trainer and mother of 3. We cover it all - from a starter marriage to birthing babies in bathtubs to looking ahead to homeschooling, no stone goes unturned.

Show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life 

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

Wow. This is the longest voice memo you’ll ever hear on a podcast available to you on Apple, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts. In the first-ever solo pod, we cover a lot of listeners' questions and wax poetic on a wild Friday night following a week of kid Spring Break. Let’s talk about juggling work and side gigs and family, the latest on my Crohn’s diagnosis. When milestones are hard for your child to achieve. Feeling fried and how fucking cliche and TRUE it is. What self care looks like when you’re chronically sick and trying not to be. ALL OF IT. LFGGGGGG.

Show notes with alll the links (and find out what I baked for our guest): muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life 

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

In this episode we are hanging in the closet with Aaron Abergel, the CEO of Steel Lighting Company. We follow Aaron through a childhood spent in the US, then Israel, then back again, sitting in on his parents’ business meetings, trying and failing at starting multiple businesses, then finally landing the bullseye, both in love and in business.

This conversation is a fascinating look inside the life of a parent who really, truly, deep in his bones is WORKING TO LIVE. And not just live, but live large. He’s laser focused on having a successful business that allows him maximum time OUT of the office to be with his family. And don’t get the wrong idea. You won’t find him scrubbing bottles or doing laundry - he’s also perfected the art of delegation so that he (and his wife) are able to lock in on these early years of parenting in a way that many would see as an unbelievable gift.

Show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life @steellightingco

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

Mike Caron is a TV Director with more than 500 episodes of television under his belt. He’s a beloved Nickelodeon fixture and the man who brings to tiktok unfiltered behind-the-scenes content of some of our favorite kids shows. He’s is known for his work on Henry Danger, Danger Force, iCarly, Zoey101, Drake and Josh and more. 

Mike is also a dad of two grown women exploring what it means to be an empty nester. This conversation starts from a suburban idyllic childhood and we get to today, where he’s in a unique spot: His kids are out of the house but he still works with kids for his day job, taking empathy from parenting his own kids and bringing it to set. If you’ve got a kid thinking about working in SHOWBIZ, or you’re just curious what it’s like to be a parent of kids navigating school and work living a Hollywood life, this episode is a must listen.

Show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life 

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

Sara Tan is the Global Beauty Director for Refinery29 and Co-Host of the Glossangeles Podcast. Her life, like so many parents, is one of stark contrasts. One day she’s hanging out with Hailey Beiber at a Rhode popup, or talking shop and parenthood with Rihanna, fully glammed up, and the next she’s knee deep in breakfast and lunch prep while wrangling kiddos after her husband leaves for work and before reinforcements arrive. Professionally, Sara has known since she was a kid what she wanted in a career and has chipped away at building the thing she envisioned for herself. Personally, she’s building her family with her husband with intention and surrounded by their wider family. It’s basically a career and parenting love bomb conversation that somehow manages to be real about the hard shit. In particular, I really loved what Sara said about how she thinks about makeup and kids (and yes we talk about the Drunk Elephant Sephora kids), and I hope you do too!

Show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

Alright alright alright. Today we hang out with an OG Austin native who has somehow married the old Austin (hippy whimsy a la Dazed and Confused) with the new Austin (creative hub for a new crop of national businesses and entrepeneurs). Because that's kind of who she is - taking the best of the old and bringing it to the new, while staying steadfast to a set of deeply ingrained core values from her own childhood. Ana Louisa Longley, the founder of Peace Creative, an Austin-based creative agency working with some of your most favorite brands, is a mom of two who, respectfully, will not be crammed into one tidy little box, so don't try it. When I first met Ana, my freshman year suite-mate, she didn't even realize she was a creative soul. Now she can't imagine her life without the things that allow her to express herself in her truest form. And maybe being a mother has helped her focus on what's most important.

Show notes with alll the links: muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

In this week’s episode we overcame some technical difficulties to bring you the wonderful story of Alma Vicencio. Alma is a first generation American finding her own way, following her instincts and pursuing a career in fashion, moving from fashion designer to in-house stylist, to being her own boss with her personal styling business, Alma Styles. The program running in the background of the machine that is Alma Vicencio is competition. From basketball, track and hurdles as a kid to distance running later in life, Alma has found a new peace and sense of belonging in the Muay Thai fighting community, first as competitor and now through coaching. Alma is very comfortable confronting what is hard and finding a way forward, because as it turns out, forward is the only direction we can really ever go.

Show notes with alll the links and photos (and find out what I baked for our guest): muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life @almasaurus @almasaurus_Styles

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

Chris Mann, accomplished singer and comedian, got extremely real in the closet. We cover how Wichita is low key the perfect place to grow up if you want to be a professional singer one day. How we aren’t sure what the Drake-Kendrick beef is actually about. How, it turns out, midlife crises make a lot of sense if you look at all that is foisted upon people in their 40s and 50s - aging and ailing parents, raising kids (and how some kids need more and you just can’t plan for that up front), and often reaching critical junctures in our professional lives that require more from us RIGHT when our families need us most. As with so many episodes recently, this one touches on the tricky position creative parents find themselves in - how do you carve out the space for yourself when your career isn’t a traditional 9-5? How do you find the space to be creative when you could be pulled out of the zone at a drop of a hat? Overall, this is a story of resilience. Of reinvention. Of having the confidence and self belief to know that you’ve got a good thing going and it’s worth sticking with it.

Show notes with alll the links and photos (and find out what I baked for our guest): muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life @officialchrismann

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa

This week we get to hang out with DIY and style expert, founder and mutha, Orly Shani. The way this woman is so fiercely independent AND ALSO deeply rooted in her family is something worth listening to. Her whole life credo seems to be: take stuff that’s there and make it your own. Look at what’s in front of you and find the opportunity - even if what’s in front of you is a DUI at a young age, figure out how to turn that low point into a learning experience that will be foundational to the rest of your life and career.

Show notes with alll the links (and find out what I baked for our guest): muthalife.substack.com 

Instagram: @mutha.life @orlyshani

Produced by: Mutha Life

Music by: Ronen Landa