Not Alone

By Valeria LipovetskySociety & Culture Education Self-Improvement Relationships

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Not Alone episodes

October 07 I Just Turned 36 and Decided to Start Living Differently. Here's Everything That Changed | Not Alone
It's just me today. No guest, no questions. Just me and everything that's been sitting in my head since my birthday.
Here's the thing about turning 36. I thought I didn't want anything. No plans, no production, phone off, in my robe by 9pm. Then a small part of me panicked that maybe I was supposed to want more.
And then the day fell apart on its own, nothing went the way it was meant to, and it landed as exactly what I needed. Which caught me off guard, because a year ago I would have planned the whole thing down to the minute and called that self-care.
And that turned out to be the theme of the whole year, not just the day. I don't want every year of my life to be preparation for a better one that's always a little further up ahead.
So in this one I get into the rest of it. The work summit where I walked into a room full of people who knew more than me, and for the first time the what-am-I-doing-here voice just didn't show up.
The morning I realized I'd been checking an app to find out how I slept, when I was the one who slept.
The strange freedom of not totally knowing who I am right now, and being more okay with that than I expected to be.
And the three words I'm carrying into this year, which are very much not the ones I would have picked five years ago, back when my only word was more.
Nobody tells you that the thing that got you here isn't always the thing that gets you where you're going next. That's the part I'm still in.
This one's for the woman who did everything right and still feels like her real life is somewhere up ahead. You're not behind. You might just be allowed to enjoy the one you're already in.
If that's you, tell me in the comments. And subscribe if you want more of these. It's the thing that tells the algorithm to send more women like you my way.
FOLLOW VALERIA
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WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
0:00 - Just me today, no guest
1:00 - What I thought I wanted for my birthday
2:30 - The day fell apart and became exactly what I needed
4:00 - Don't celebrate me, but also celebrate me
5:30 - Nobody can read your mind, not even a man in a chef costume
7:00 - I can buy my own flowers, I just don't want to
8:30 - Your partner needs the update
10:00 - The investing panel, and the room full of people who knew more
12:00 - The what-am-I-doing-here voice that finally went quiet
14:00 - Qualified and a beginner in the same room
15:30 - The opposite of a thought leader
17:30 - Less sure of myself, and happier for it
19:00 - The energy healer and the Oura ring
21:00 - When taking care of myself turned into grading myself
23:00 - My easygoing era was a performance
25:00 - No is a complete sentence
26:30 - The nails post, and what do you mean I have a choice
28:00 - Rosh Hashanah, and the word around the table
29:30 - The men said business, the women said play
31:00 - Taking the permission to play, and booking Paris
32:30 - The three words I'm carrying into this year
34:00 - The thing that got you here isn't what gets you there next
35:30 - You might just be allowed to enjoy the life you're in
DISCLAIMER
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46 min
September 30 Why Every Successful Woman Suddenly Wants to Blow Up Her Life | Krista Williams
You built the life you were supposed to want. The career, the wins, the whole thing. And lately you've been quietly wondering why you don't want it anymore, and then feeling insane for wondering, because nothing is technically wrong.

You're not insane. It's happening to almost every woman I know.

Krista posted a reel about it that went viral, and the second I saw it I thought, there it is. That's the thing. Every woman she knows is pivoting. Walking away from careers they spent a decade building, from lives that looked good from the outside, toward something they can't fully explain yet.

And I couldn't scroll past it, because it's happening everywhere I turn. My friends. The group chats. Me. So I brought her in, because we had to talk about it.

Here's what we got into.

So much of what we've been calling ambition our whole lives was never ambition. It was a trauma response in a nice outfit. We performed. We over-functioned. We achieved, and got rewarded for it, and quietly ran ourselves into the ground doing it.

Nobody tells you the thing that built your whole life can be the same thing making you disappear.

We got into the difference between being called to leave something and just running from it, because they feel identical and they are not the same thing.

The pieces of ourselves we left behind chasing all of it, and how a lot of us are quietly going back to get her. And then female friendship, which is where I cried, because that's the part nobody prepares you for either.

This one is for the woman quietly outgrowing her life who hasn't told a soul. The one running a life that fit her five years ago and doesn't anymore. And the one starting to suspect that the ambition that got her here isn't the thing that's going to take her where she actually wants to go.

If this is you, tell me in the comments. And if it helped, subscribe. That's what tells the algorithm to bring more women like you here.

FOLLOW KRISTA

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Almost 30:
https://almost30.com/

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FOLLOW NOT ALONE

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SHOP THIS EPISODE

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WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT

2:00 The pivot every woman is quietly making
3:08 The year and a half we've been circling this
4:30 Beyond achievement, beyond what everyone told me to be
5:42 When ambition is really a trauma response
7:03 Playing the roles: mom, wife, the woman who has it together
8:18 How our relationships are changing too
9:19 The marriage that ended at thirty-four
11:52 Why women are done performing
13:47 You don't have to fix everything
16:24 What the twenty-year-olds are eating up
18:30 I want visibility: the wanting we perform at work
20:58 I love everybody, I'm having the best time (are you?)
22:22 Giving your emotions to your little girl
25:00 Sometimes it's a gift, sometimes it's a lot
28:20 What her flow actually looks like
30:40 The leadership coach, and doing the work
33:00 Called to leave, or running away? They feel identical
33:59 What do I actually want?
35:15 Why the saying-no conversation triggers her
36:07 Can I? Should I? Do I even want to?
38:40 Loneliness, and what it's really telling you
40:00 How to truthfully answer what you want
43:50 You're becoming a whole new woman
45:53 Watching it happen to the women around her
48:48 The divorce phase, and coming out the other side
51:20 How she showed up in the hardest times
54:00 The premonition, and trusting what she knew
57:36 Holding good and grateful and still wanting more
1:00:00 Female friendship, and learning how to receive love
1:02:30 When we feel like we're overdoing something
1:05:00 Her village of women
1:07:17 Making your next choice a soulful one
1:08:30 The women over fifty living the most beautiful lives
1:10:54 A decade in spirituality, and what it taught her
1:13:00 The need to optimize, and letting it go
1:15:00 Rapid fire
1:16:00 What women aren't saying out loud

Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 21 min
September 23 The Real Reason So Many Kids Are Struggling Today | Dr. Milobsky
A four-year-old boy who can't sit still for circle time used to just be a four-year-old boy. Now it's an evaluation, a diagnosis, a meeting where you nod politely and then cry in the car. That's where this conversation started, and it's the one I've been wanting to have for a long time. I'm a mother of three boys, and Dr. Michael Milobsky said the thing I've felt in my body for years: most of the boys who end up in his office are completely normal. The label is the problem, not the boy.

He's a pediatrician of thirty years and a father of seven, and he told me he learned more from raising his own kids than from any of his training. He changed my mind on things I walked in sure about, which I don't say often. We get into why our boys are in crisis and what mislabeling does to a boy by the time he's fourteen. What our daughters actually need to grow up confident, which is not the conversation girl moms are being handed. Why he calls ADHD an operating system and not a disorder. And the one thing a father gives a child that a mother can't, which, to my surprise, is not discipline. It's regulation.

Then it turned, the way the best ones do. He told me about the pain he carried in his body for years and refused to look at, until it cost him his leg, and what he found waiting on the other side of finally listening to it. His line for it: losing his leg let him grow wings. I came into this conversation thinking about my children. I left it thinking about myself.

This is for the mother who has been told her child has a problem. For the one quietly certain she's doing all of this wrong. For the one who keeps promising she'll get to herself later. Our kids are not broken. A lot of what we're labeling in them is really just what we haven't looked at in ourselves, and you being okay is the single most powerful thing you'll ever give them. This is Dr. Michael Milobsky.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Dr. Michael:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_michael_milobsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr_mikem
Your Kids Will Be Fine (podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@Dr_Michael_Milobsky
Chicken Soup Concierge Care: https://www.chickensoupdenver.com/
Follow Valeria:
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog
Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/7798209
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What we talked about:
2:06 How I found him, and why I manifested this conversation
2:47 The one parenting book I threw across the room
3:53 Why boys are in trouble right now
4:31 The normal boys getting labeled as a problem
5:10 Boy brains and girl brains are on different timelines
5:34 What actually changed inside the schools
7:00 What boys really need between three and five
8:42 What a label at four does to a boy at fourteen
10:06 Mislabeled boys grow into angry men
10:47 What Denmark gets right about early childhood
11:32 How to make up for it if your kids are past that window
12:04 The five things every kid needs, starting with a third place
13:03 Boredom is a skill now
13:39 Why we stopped letting our kids risk and fail
14:20 Why did we become this way?
14:56 The culture of safetyism, and the phone as an umbilical cord
19:11 Our parents were submarines
20:02 How our own anxiety gets passed straight to our kids
20:48 The demotion, and whether mothers do this more
21:32 The most important skill: learning to apologize to your kids
22:11 When mothers need to step back, starting when they walk
23:19 Why stepping back gets harder as they get older
24:43 The unresolved wounds we parent from
25:22 What's happening with our daughters that nobody's naming
26:49 The girl I was scared to raise
27:13 How a daughter absorbs her mother's emotional weather
27:31 The two modes so many men were raised with
29:10 The unique thing a mother and father each give a daughter
33:00 The five things, and why all roads lead to the phone
34:29 The right age for a smartphone
35:25 Why it has to be collective, not one family on an island
36:46 Shabbat, and the power of a weekly reset
37:00 ADHD is not a disorder, it's an operating system
39:29 Should you get the diagnosis, and the label fear
40:30 The negative story kids write about themselves without one
41:13 Landing on the right professional, not just medication
43:30 The other things that look exactly like ADHD
46:19 Iron, omega-3, and vitamin D
49:11 What raising seven kids taught him that medical school didn't
50:19 Parenting anxiety, and the Lindsay Clancy case
53:41 Where do mothers actually go for help?
54:08 Postpartum depression is neurobiology, not weakness
1:00:36 Why we're the most lost generation, and the village we lost
1:02:22 The night-nurse gift, and building each other a village
1:03:07 What a father gives that a mother can't: regulation
1:04:14 The two crayons in the box: anger or withdrawal
1:06:30 Where modern culture gets fatherhood most wrong
1:07:00 Planting and building: the two jobs of a parent
1:11:58 His own story, and the body that kept score for years
1:14:30 Losing the leg to grow wings
1:16:00 The body keeps score, and getting to yourself before it's too late
1:19:17 What he'd say to a mother listening right now
1:19:30 Rapid fire
1:21:00 What parents aren't saying out loud
This episode touches on postpartum depression and maternal mental health. If you or someone you love is struggling, Postpartum Support International can help: call or text 1-800-944-4773, or visit postpartum.net.
Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 27 min
September 16 The Real Reason You Keep Attracting the Wrong Men | Serena Kerrigan
You've been called too much your whole life. Too loud, too opinionated, too intense, too independent, too picky. You've done the work, sat through the dates, read the books, and still gone home wondering what's wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. You've just been looking in the wrong places.
Serena Kerrigan spent six years as the loudest, most confident voice in the dating conversation, the woman millions turned to, and she almost didn't write her book because being single made her feel like a fraud. In this episode, she and Valeria get into the reframe that changed everything, and it's the same one that led Serena to the man she now lives with: she met him on a stranger's podcast, reading out a text from a guy who had ghosted her, and he told her she wasn't too much, she was just looking in the wrong places.
They talk about why she invented a whole confident persona at eighteen because she was insecure, the year she went quiet building something no one could see, why the most successful women walk around in masculine energy that quietly keeps love out, and the dating advice she's had to fact-check now that she's actually in love. And the line every woman needs to hear: stop calling yourself picky. You're not picky. You're refusing to settle.
You were the prize the whole time.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Serena:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serenakerrigan
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serenakerrigan
Her book, Let's F*cking Date: https://letsfuckingdate.com/
Follow Valeria:
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Follow Not Alone:
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Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/5542133
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What we talked about:
2:44 The book this isn't, and the book it actually is
3:31 Eighteen, insecure, and inventing SFK as armor
4:15 Standing at the mirror, saying the name out loud
5:17 When confidence starts as a performance
6:24 The night people were blown away that she stopped caring
7:04 I'm actually a sensitive person and an empath
8:30 When the persona became a crutch
9:27 The fine line of knowing when to turn it on
10:29 What guy is going to want to deal with that?
11:07 Altering yourself before you even walk into the date
12:21 Holding up mirrors to yourself
12:47 Going back to figure out what wasn't working
13:07 I didn't think I was worthy of a relationship
13:49 Deciding to show up as herself, not the persona
14:03 Why she walked away to write the book
14:56 When she finally felt like she figured it out
16:09 Calling her agent: what if I wrote a dating book?
17:20 I'm going to stop editing myself
17:38 On a stranger's podcast, reading out the text that ghosted her
18:06 For the right guy, you'll be the perfect amount
18:43 Meeting the man who saw the soft person underneath
19:22 What to actually look for: feeling safe
19:48 When you don't trust yourself around someone
20:40 When you meet the right person, the anxiety goes quiet
21:08 The daddy issues reframe, and the not-enough wound
22:04 The older man, and what she was really chasing
22:46 Whatever you want, that's fine: losing herself on dates
23:12 The dating advice she's had to fact-check now
24:06 The wall she put up when it was actually going well
25:21 Both of you still figuring out who you are
26:54 The three Ps: become the prize, enjoy the ride, never settle
27:32 We're so hard on ourselves
28:16 It's not men are trash, and it's not mason jar affirmations
29:37 The only thing you can control is how you show up
30:34 When was the last time you did something outside your comfort zone?
31:29 Writing the book was the most uncomfortable thing
32:04 A beautiful Miami story
33:28 Why stepping outside your comfort zone changes everything
34:50 You have to be outside, meeting people
35:18 You're most magnetic in your own energy
35:50 Why the modern woman keeps love out with masculine armor
40:00 Stop calling yourself picky. You're refusing to settle
45:00 Rapid fire
50:00 What women aren't saying out loud
Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 6 min
September 09 She Built a Beauty Empire Doing the Opposite of Everyone Else in the Industry | Dianna Cohen
We live in a world that has made being a founder a whole personality: move fast, be visible, build in public, become the brand, and make sure everyone sees how hard you're working. Dianna Cohen built Crown Affair by doing almost the exact opposite.
Crown Affair is at Sephora and Goop, with Gwyneth Paltrow as one of its earliest investors. But this conversation isn't really about beauty. Dianna built her company around three words: "take your time". And a few years into building it, she made a decision most founders would struggle to make: she stepped down as CEO after realizing her nervous system wasn't built for the way she'd been leading.
We talk about why slowness can be a strategy, what it means to lead from feminine energy, the difference between being an operator and a creator, and why creativity and intuition deserve a place in leadership conversations. Dianna also shares what burnout taught her, why our bodies often know things before our brains do, and the line I haven't stopped thinking about: when everything in you says push harder, sometimes the answer is to do the opposite.
This episode is for anyone tired of moving at everyone else's pace, and wondering whether success really has to cost you your sanity.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Dianna:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diannacohen
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@diannacohen
Crown Affair: https://crownaffair.com/
Take Your Time Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/take-your-time/id1896516883
Substack: https://dianna.substack.com/
Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog
Follow Not Alone:
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What we talked about:
2:02 Meeting in Miami four years ago
3:31 Building a world around taking your time
5:13 Time is the ultimate luxury
6:25 It started from a Google Doc
9:02 Getting into beauty and why ignorance is bliss
10:39 Two years of nights and weekends before going all in
12:45 The bathroom as a sacred space
14:11 Is slowness actually a strategy?
16:48 What she gained by going slow
17:43 Stepping down as CEO
19:27 Couples therapy for a founder and operator
20:04 The nervous system that wasn't built for the way she was leading
20:32 Do the opposite of what your brain is telling you
20:52 “Happy people don't start companies”
22:36 Gary and Valeria's own sabotage
26:33 Operator vs. creator
27:44 The fear of being seen
30:35 Why the CMO should be the last hire
32:46 Creativity and feminine energy in a masculine industry
35:23 What feminine energy looks like in practice
36:04 Intuition is a hard skill
39:30 Playing in the sandbox again
42:28 Why isn't creativity in leadership books?
45:15 The Artist's Way
48:53 Trust vs. faith
52:04 Why we don't talk enough about the nervous system
52:55 Our bodies speak a different language than our brains
55:36 Growing up in a household that didn't allow crying
58:14 Scarcity and learning to receive abundance
1:00:22 Success with emptiness inside
1:03:03 Lessons from iconic women she worked for
1:05:40 Founder culture and cosplaying CEO
1:07:18 Expert, creator, celebrity and product brands
1:08:57 The triangle of delusion
1:11:37 How many people you move—not how many you reach
1:12:00 Why she'll never build in public
1:16:33 The two-phone trick for Instagram addiction
1:19:37 What women should understand about creativity
1:21:30 Rapid fire
1:25:30 What women aren't saying out loud
Disclaimer:The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 31 min
September 02 Nobody Warns You That Some Seasons of Motherhood Just Won't Feel Like Yours
A while back I posted something about my kids, and a woman sent me a DM that has been quietly sitting in the back of my mind ever since. She said, it feels like you resisted motherhood for a while and now you've fully embraced it. What changed? And here's the honest thing. If that message had landed in my inbox two years ago, it would have sent me straight down a dark hole. It would have fed the mom guilt so well I'd have needed months to climb back out.
So this one is me finally answering her, out loud. I had a very specific image of what motherhood would look like, and when it actually arrived, it looked nothing like the picture. I was exhausted. I was, if I'm being honest, bored. And I felt so much guilt for even thinking that, because everyone around me seemed to be glowing in exactly the season that was making me feel lost. I thought I was failing at the one thing I was supposed to be built for.
What I've come to understand is the thing I most needed someone to tell me back then. Loving your children and feeling fully lit up by every single stage of raising them are two different things. You can adore your kids and still not feel like yourself in the baby years. That doesn't make you a bad mother. It makes you a human one. And some of us, it turns out, come alive in the chapters that come later.
This is for the woman quietly wondering why she doesn't feel the way she was told she would. The one comparing her insides to everyone else's highlight reel. The one grieving the version of herself she was before, not knowing the best is still ahead of her. Nobody warns you that some seasons of motherhood just won't feel like yours. I'm telling you now, so you don't spend two years thinking something is wrong with you. There isn't. You're not alone.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog
Follow Not Alone:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/7358472
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What we talked about:
0:00 The DM that made me stop
0:52 Two years ago this would have wrecked me
1:37 The very specific image of motherhood I had
2:22 When it arrived, it looked nothing like the picture
2:43 I was so bored, and so guilty for feeling it
3:07 The woman I was before the kids
4:19 Trying, and failing, to find one clear memory
5:03 Feeling like I was failing at what I was built for
5:30 Everyone else looked like they were in their flow
6:20 What the curated feed does to mothers
6:44 The borrowed guilt from a script
7:09 But what about the rest of us?
7:32 Loving your kids and being lit up by every stage are two different things
7:55 What shifted with an eleven and a seven-year-old
8:19 The conversations are my favorite part now
9:08 The expectations I grew up carrying
10:38 Not every woman is built for the baby chapter
11:08 To the woman who doesn't feel it yet
11:31 It doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're human
12:14 The comparison loosened its grip
12:36 Sometimes your best motherhood years come later
13:00 You are not alone
Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
18 min
August 26 The Woman Who Built a Nine-Figure Empire Says Most of What You See Online Is Fake | Codie Sanchez
There are people you meet once and think about for years. Codie Sanchez is one of mine. She is the founder of Contrarian Thinking, a Forbes 2026 Top Creator, and one of the most powerful voices in business on the internet, the rare person in her world who says the quiet part out loud instead of selling you the highlight reel. A New York Times bestseller with a nine-figure portfolio of businesses most people will never see the inside of, and a way of talking that makes you sit up straight.
So I asked her the thing I actually wanted to know. What's the most dishonest part of the entrepreneurship dream we're all being sold? And she did not flinch. We get into why most business owners don't run their businesses, their businesses run them. Why the thing you build to give you freedom so often ends up with you by the throat. The vacation test that Gary and I failed miserably. And her whole argument, the one behind her new book Own or Be Owned, that being needed is not the same thing as being free, and most of us confuse the two until it's very expensive to learn the difference.
But this one got personal fast, because Codie is about to become a mother for the first time, at the exact moment she's releasing the biggest work of her career. So we talked about what happens to a woman who built the whole machine when she has to evolve into a different woman for the next chapter. Running a business with your husband. Softness and power, and how they actually meet in leadership. Whether we even want it all, or whether we've just never been asked what we actually want.
This is for the woman who is burned out, or tired, or quietly talked herself out of starting the thing. The one who suspects most of what she sees online is a little bit fake, and is right. Codie is proof you can build the business and still have the life, but only if you're honest with yourself about which life that is first. This is Codie Sanchez.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Codie:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct
BigDeal podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bigdeal/id1736593333
Preorder her book, Own or Be Owned: https://codiesanchez.com/book/
Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog
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Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
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What we talked about:
3:00 Round two, and a whole new chapter
5:00 Should you even become an owner?
6:00 Everybody can build a $10 business, but should they
9:19 The most dishonest part of the entrepreneurship dream
10:30 Selling a dream that's missing all the context
12:36 The questions nobody asks before they start
13:46 The price of the visibility
14:50 What do you actually want, though
16:00 The first million is the hardest
18:30 The martyr trap
21:03 Profit and revenue, not vanity metrics
24:11 Everybody's doing the most
25:19 Getting your team invested and leveraged
28:00 I'm not happy, and I'm the one who built this
30:27 Being needed is not the same as being free
33:10 What women in particular have to unlearn
35:30 Knowing what your person actually wants
36:38 The asset nobody wants to buy
39:00 What's my real hourly wage?
42:53 This is our era, ladies
44:00 The vacation test, which Gary and I failed
46:23 It won't work if you want different things
47:28 The moment she realized she had to evolve
48:51 Fresh flowers, and building a company you want to be in
50:55 Creating something from nothing
52:17 A world builder
55:00 What if you want something different now
58:07 Running a business, and a marriage, at the same time
1:00:44 The bargain you don't want to make
1:02:44 We're more capable than we're told
1:03:38 It's okay to say you want less, too
1:06:15 Softness and power in leadership
1:08:02 Buy or build?
1:09:28 Time is the real currency
1:11:00 Rapid fire
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1 hr 16 min
August 19 At 39 I Had No Marriage, No Career, No Baby, and No Plan. By 44 I Had a Life I Never Imagined | Cat Pierce
At thirty-nine, Cat Pierce had no marriage, no career, no baby, and no plan. If you did the math on her life the way we're all quietly taught to, she was failing. The music money was gone. The marriage was over. She had never been the one left before, and suddenly she was. And then she said the thing that made me put my pen down. Underneath all of it, she felt a flicker of freedom. Because for the first time she could admit she wasn't fulfilled, and now she got to build the life she actually wanted.
I found Cat the way half the internet did, one of those videos where her whole inner monologue plays across her face without a word, and I've been a little mesmerized ever since. I wanted to know what she was drinking. Turns out the answer is a life she made twice. First act: signed at nineteen, fifteen years on the road with her sister, opening for Coldplay and Elton John, writing the song that became the sound of an entire generation. Second act, the one that got me: a beauty line she started while trying to conceive, a tarot deck she drew by hand and published, a New York Times feature, a memoir, and a daughter she had at forty-four with donor eggs and a husband she called in by writing him down on a list.
None of it happened on the timeline she thought she was failing. That's the whole thing. We get into the rockstar years and what fifteen years of needing to be seen quietly did to her. The collapse, and the strange grace that grew out of it. Whether she believes we're all a little bit witches. And the line I keep repeating to every woman I know: you can miss every timeline you ever set for yourself and still land somewhere better than the place you were aiming.
This is for the woman who watches everyone else hit the milestones and keeps quietly moving her own goalposts back. The one grieving a version of her life that never showed up, not yet realizing a completely different one already did. You are not behind. You are not late. You're just early to a life you haven't met yet. This is Cat Pierce.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
FOLLOW CAT
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/iamcatdog
Omen Beauty on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/omenbycatpierce
Omen Beauty + The Omen Oracle Deck:
https://omenbycatpierce.com/
FOLLOW VALERIA
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TikTok:
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FOLLOW NOT ALONE
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TikTok:
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Website:
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Shop Valeria’s look from this episode:
https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/7077651
Amazon Storefront:
https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
02:16 The timeline every woman is scared of
03:11 The video where her inner talk showed up on her face
05:23 Leno, Letterman, and the rockstar years
06:10 From nineteen to her mid-thirties
07:00 What the industry taught her about being seen
09:00 Learning to read a room and grab a crowd
11:18 Saying, “That’s actually not what I want”
13:07 Being asked to show up as herself now
15:44 We’re constantly healing
17:13 The breakup that broke her open
19:22 Thirty-nine, and everything gone at once
20:54 No one is coming to save you
22:00 The maternal instinct she didn’t expect
24:46 A real blow to the ego
25:53 Drawing the first tarot cards to survive it
27:36 Feeling like she had failed
28:47 Freezing eggs and the hot topic nobody says out loud
31:00 Writing it down and calling him in with a list
35:23 You can miss the timeline and still find a way
36:01 Starting Omen Beauty while trying to conceive
37:43 The new dream and the donor egg decision
40:00 What it actually costs, financially and otherwise
42:21 Growing into a different kind of mother
44:16 Happy with one and the sister comparison
45:17 The frequency, the knowing, and trusting herself
49:00 Tarot, oracle decks, and where the art came from
51:30 You need the dark soil to grow something good
53:58 Do you believe we’re all witches?
55:30 We have more power than we’re taught
58:19 Learning to be by yourself
59:22 The Disney story we were sold
01:00:17 Shockingly low maintenance
01:04:30 The memoir and connecting all the dots
01:08:46 To the woman who’s single, tired, and sure she’s behind
01:11:27 You might just be recharging
01:13:06 Rapid fire
DISCLAIMER
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1 hr 20 min
August 12 America’s Most Trusted Parenting Expert Says We’ve Had “Good Mom” Backwards | Dr. Becky Kennedy
I have a complicated relationship with parenting experts. I usually leave them feeling worse than when I walked in, one more list of things I'm apparently getting wrong. So I sat down with Dr. Becky Kennedy, the most trusted parenting expert in the country, half braced to feel like a failure again. Instead I said the quiet thing out loud. I'm tired. I'm so tired. And the woman who wrote the book looked at me and said, me too. We're the first generation of parents in a world that never turns off.
Then she told me the only thing she'll call herself an expert in is imperfect parenting, and something in me unclenched for the first time in about a year. Because here's what nobody hands you with the baby: the exhaustion isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. Sometimes it's just proof of how much you're carrying. We get into all of it. Why our kids' feelings run the entire household now, and how that even happened. Whether we're performing motherhood for an invisible audience instead of just living it. And the line I genuinely cannot shake, that optimizing for our kids' happiness is the fastest way to optimize their anxiety.
She also asked me one question I was too embarrassed to answer honestly. How often are you just around your kid, quiet, not on your phone? Reader, I did not have a good answer. Somewhere in there I had to admit I don't fully know what I'm doing as a mother, and she let me off the hook in the best way: nobody does. The whole conversation kept landing on two words. Do less. So much less. I cannot tell you how good it felt to be told that by the one person allowed to say it.
This is for the mom who reads every book, holds every boundary, names every feeling before it becomes a tantrum, and still lies awake certain she's the one getting it wrong. You're not. You're just tired, and you've been sold a version of good mom that was never real. This is Dr. Becky Kennedy, and I left this one lighter than I've felt in a long time.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
FOLLOW DR. BECKY
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside
Good Inside Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/goodinside
Good Inside with Dr. Becky Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-inside-with-dr-becky/id1561689671
Good Inside:
https://www.goodinside.com/
FOLLOW VALERIA
Instagram:
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FOLLOW NOT ALONE
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TikTok:
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Podcast:
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SHOP
Shop my look from this episode:
https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/6585812
Amazon Storefront:
https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
2:00 My tricky relationship with parenting experts
3:30 I'm sick of it, and I don't think doing it all made me a better mom
6:10 When did being a good mom mean never stopping?
9:05 Why we hear a mother want less and think she loves them less
11:40 She's tired too, even as the one everyone runs to
13:30 Around your kids versus actually with them
16:20 The performance of motherhood
18:30 Optimizing for their comfort at every moment
21:15 Happy kids don't become happy adults the way we think
24:00 Optimizing for happiness optimizes for anxiety
26:30 The two words that change everything: I believe you
29:03 Why fixing their feelings backfires
33:10 The death of the tiger mom
36:40 The childhoods we came from
40:00 Raising them entitled without meaning to
42:23 Stop negotiating the same thing every day
45:30 A firm boundary and real empathy at the same time
49:15 What she actually does at seven in the morning
52:00 She doesn't parent like Dr. Becky either
55:30 Do less. So much less
58:42 You yell, I yell, and then we repair
1:02:41 Repair is the whole thing
1:05:30 This isn't really a parenting book
1:07:05 Perfect parenting was never the goal
DISCLAIMER
The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 12 min
August 05 I Think We've Made Ourselves Scared of Our Own Lives. Here's What I Keep Noticing
I think I'm a little over the mental health conversation. I know how that sounds, so stay with me. I believe in therapy. It has helped me more than I can say, and I'll keep doing the work. This isn't about anxiety, or burnout, or real trauma. Those are their own conversations, and they matter. This is about something else, something that started out helpful and quietly turned into something I'm not sure is helping us anymore.
Here's what I keep noticing. Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag. Every hard week has to mean something. We've built this whole vocabulary, attachment style, nervous system, activated, aligned, not aligned, and we've started reaching for it to describe a bad Wednesday. Somewhere in there we forgot the difference between something being hard and something being wrong. They feel almost the same in the body. They are not the same thing.
So I get into how you actually tell them apart, because that's the muscle I think we've lost. Hard gets quieter when you sit with it. Wrong gets louder. Hard makes you bigger. Wrong makes you smaller. Hard moves through and ends. Wrong feels the same today as it did three months ago. And then I get honest about my own life, the modeling shoot at fourteen where I froze, the year I moved to Canada and was depressed the whole time and stayed anyway, marrying Gary at twenty-one through all the judgment, filming my first videos alone and cringing the entire time. If I'd read any of that as a sign to stop, I wouldn't have the life I have now.
I'm not saying this from the other side of it. I'm in it this week, still catching myself calling something "not aligned" when the truth is I was just scared. But I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing and complained the whole way than the one who protected her peace so carefully she never learned anything about herself. There's a difference between protecting your peace and protecting your potential. This one's a developing conversation, and I want to keep having it with you.
New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.
Follow Valeria:
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Follow Not Alone:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
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Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/6814030
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What we talked about:
(1:03) I think I'm ready to say some truths
(1:23) I'm a little over the mental health conversation
(1:49) What I actually mean, and what I believe in
(2:11) The stuff I'm not talking about: anxiety, burnout, real trauma
(2:46) Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag
(3:04) The whole vocabulary we've built
(3:46) Borrowing that language for things that are just hard
(4:46) We're making ourselves scared of our own lives
(5:02) The difference between hard and wrong
(6:26) If they feel the same in the body, how do you tell?
(7:19) One: hard gets quieter, wrong gets louder
(7:56) Two: hard makes you bigger, wrong makes you smaller
(8:41) Three: hard moves, wrong stays
(9:18) Every version of me I'm proud of came from discomfort
(9:48) Fourteen, and frozen at the modeling shoot
(10:25) Moving to Canada at twenty, depressed for a year, and staying
(11:03) Marrying Gary at twenty-one, and the judgment
(11:36) Filming alone, cringing, wanting to quit
(12:34) My mom, the loudest voice in my head
(12:46) Her story: a single mother starting over with nothing
(13:23) She had to trust herself because there was nothing else
(14:20) The millennial load, and the muscle we lost
(15:25) I'm not speaking from the other side. I'm in it this week
(16:05) The cage of overhealing
(16:21) Feeling a hard thing without naming it
(16:51) The difference between rest and avoidance
(17:12) Catching myself using the language to avoid
(17:52) The version of me who feels ready is never coming
(18:35) To the woman who's quietly tired of all of it
(19:00) You're allowed to feel things without diagnosing them
(19:49) Protecting your peace vs protecting your potential
(20:14) I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing
(20:18) A developing conversation. Tell me where you stand
Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsored or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

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

About Not Alone

From the publisher's feed

Welcome to "Not Alone," a podcast where we dive deep into the stories that shape us. Hosted by Valeria Lipovetsky, this space is dedicated to revealing the raw, often unspoken challenges faced by women from all walks of life. Each episode invites you to listen to heartfelt conversations with inspiring guests who open up about their personal battles, breakthroughs, and the lessons learned along the way.