The Meltdown City Podcast

On today’s episode, Nic & Ali catch up, talk about #meltdowns and a ghost story in a ghost town.

They did get into a book ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’  by author Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor.

He talks eloquently about how our minds are like the elephant and the rider. The rider is our conscious mind and the elephant is the subconscious… And how we can tame the elephant in order to find happiness.

In the pursuit of happiness, he includes three ways to become happier such as practicing meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy or getting on SSRIs.   We should spend more time doing things that make you happy are ways to increase your happiness level such as practicing random acts of kindness or being in your flow state.   Also, he recommended spending more time off, less on consumer goods and nurturing your current relationships with family and friends.

And BONUS, we read travel blogger Melissa Bitz’, most recent post on Instagram about happiness since it fit right in with our topic! She offers up her recipe for happiness we couldn’t agree more!

What are you doing to tame your personal elephant in your pursuit for happiness?

On this episode, Nic & Ali talk about kids loosing their baby teeth, Breitenbush, Eddie Izzard, Oregon Country Fair and #meltdownmoments including parades, Paypal mishaps and wrestling with garden hoses! Stupid GD hoses. 

We  review our career path from high school until present day and how  it has not been a straight line.  We were inspired to review our trajectories after a reader’s email – Christopher Greenwood.  Thanks, Chris!!

Are you wanting to change things up, start a new career or try something new? Where are you pivoting? Why have you made some of your career choices?

On this week’s episode, Nic and Ali interview Kathy Waage. A married mother of two and an ICU nurse, Kathy talks all about how she and her husband decided to sell their home in North Bend, WA to travel around the states in an RV for a year.  Kathy gets really personal about how motherhood challenged her and her need for some serious change.  So, Kathy, Leland and their two young kids set out on a great adventure.  She has some incredible stories, amazing gems of places to see such as the Channel Islands off of Ventura to Custer State Park and advice on how to actually make this work!

After a year on the road, Kathy and her family settled on their new location of Durango, Colorado where she is working as a nurse and Leland is busy with his vintage car repair business. Check out Kathy on instagram @smucs and their blog www.nomadicbarefootchaos.com  which kept friends and family up to date on their adventures.

Way to be an inspiration, Kathy! We LOVED talking with you and we most definitely want to come to Durango to visit!

XOXO

On this weeks episode, Nic and Ali catch up on the morning of Fourth of July, hence the name of the episode. Nicole recaps TravelCon 2019, Matthew Kepne’s travel conference that was in Boston this June and the fun that was had! Everyone there was doing amazing, inspirational things, from travel bloggers, travel vloggers, journalists, podcasters and tour operators. Some of the keynote speakers included Cheryl Strayed, Mark Manson, and Clay Hebert.  Nic caught up with a few familiar faces including Melissa Bitz from Traveling Bitz, Aaron Schlein with Dramatic Dad and the Family Travel Radio Podcast, Kevin Hill with Two Adults No Kids and Erick Prince, the Minority Nomad a photojournalist. She also chatted with Meggan Kaiser, the author of Everything for Free – Free Travel for the Modern Nomad. Nicole shares Clay Hebert’s incredible advice on how the elevator pitch isn’t doing you any favors and how to properly introduce yourself.

Ali catches us up to speed on what she is reading which is Esther Perel’s the ‘State of Affairs‘ and Peggy Orenstein’s ‘Girls and Sex‘ in preparation for raising a young daughter. She is contemplating how girls are taught to view their bodies and changing that landscape. Ali also had a guilt free mommy night out with one of her best friends and details how that felt.

What is new with you? What are you working towards?

Thanks for listening!

Sumedha Ahuja-Bahri is a patent attorney, stand-up comedian, comedy writer, playwright and producer and mother of two who lives in the DC area. She discusses how her life has always been infused with her creative side, how she got on this path and how this was received by her family, especially her father.

Sumedha co-wrote and co-produced an interactive stage comedy called “fishnet-networks.net” that ran in Boston for 3 years in the theater district.    Currently, she is one of the three writers and creators on Pushers – a show about pharmaceutical reps.  Sumedha divulges her creative writing process, how it felt to do her first stand-up routine and behind the scenes details on creating a web-series.

We had such a fun time chatting with Sumedha and we hope you enjoy this episode, too!

You can follow Sumedha Ahuja-Bahri on twitter @momediansb or here!

Did you miss us?  We missed you!  We are back for Season Two – New Season, New You.  We have a new intro and outro.  Let us know what you think!  We cover our #meltdownmoments, catch up on all of the things we are up to trying to push ourselves out of our comfort zones.   We talk about our upcoming guests that YOU don’t want to miss.

Come laugh, get inspired and have fun!

What are you doing to push yourselves along?

XOXO

Nic & Ali

This week, Nicole and Ali catch up, talk about their new segment “TV time” and their upcoming event, the Episode 30 Party which is a wrap of Season One of The Meltdown City Podcast!

Have you ever taken something personally or made the wrong assumption? We have, too! This week, we get into ‘The Four Agreements – A Path to Personal Freedom’ by Don Miguel Ruiz. This book offers up a code of conduct from ancient Toltec wisdom that can help free a person from suffering by following the following steps:

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don’t take things personally
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Do your best

This was an thought provoking book. Have you read it? The author touts that you can find your own path to heaven and personal freedom by living this way.  Certainly, there was something to be gleaned especially not taking things personally. That is a huge continual life lesson.

Thank you for listening to the MDCP! We are wrapping season one and taken a few weeks off to regroup and plan! Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe! Email us your #meltdownmoments, crazy stories or whatever in between and we’ll read it on the air!

PEACE OUT!

Nic & Ali

P.S. Featured in this photo is Amy Johnson, Food Photographer from episode 15, Nelson Lau, Seattle Foodie from episode 22 and Barry Faught, Coffee Entrepreneur from episode 9 take from our episode 30 wrap party! We appreciate your support!!

On today’s episode, Nicole and Ali do their usual catchup, talk about #Meltdownmoments and discuss their new segment “TV show time.”

Today, we discuss Jen Sincero’s best selling book, ‘You are a Badass – How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life.’ This is a book everyone should read! This will help you believe in the power in trusting the universe. Some key takeaways were:

1. Your mind believes what you tell it. If you tell it “you suck, you can’t do this, you’ll never find happiness” then that will be the case. Start telling yourself that what you want IS possible.
2. “If you want to lead a life you’ve never led, you have to do things you’ve never done.”
3. “Those that want massive change will do it, those that don’t will make an excuse.”
4. Love yourself.

We also go over the nine ways to apply this book to your life, so stay tuned for that!

Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe! Tweet at us on twitter @meltowncitypod, follow us on instagram @meltdowncitypodcast, check out our Facebook Page. Email us at [email protected] your thoughts, comments and we’ll read it on the air! Peace Out!

On this week’s episode, Nic and Ali catch up on a beautiful Seattle spring day and tell funny job meltdowns, mistakes and mishaps from years past. Have you ever had something not go your way on the job? We sure have. Ali should be careful with her email clearly as you will hear, and Nicole should re-consider ever being a temp. There might be a funny nurse story in there and we shout out to the Nurses for Nurse’s Week. Thanks for all you do! Come listen, laugh and be entertained. Send us YOUR funny job mishaps or mistakes to [email protected] and we’ll read it on the air!  Thanks for listening!

On this episode, Nicole and Ali share their #meltdownmoments from the week and this one should go down in the annals of podcasting failures. Ali shares how her birthday was a dudder and needs a do-over. Poor babe.

This week, we discuss ‘Crush It‘ by Gary Vanyerchuk. Gary is an entreprenuer, author, CEO of VaynerMedia and founder of WineLibraryTV. Gary inspires hard work and hussle and lays it out for you in this book. If you want to go after your passion, you can achieve it but you must hussle. He offers advice for people just getting started that was surprising, such as don’t pay attention to your stats and analytics for a year. People get impatient and don’t see growth fast enough, so they quit before their thing gets going. So, you have to be patient and cultivate community with what following you have and truly care about those people.

Come listen to us talk about what resonated with Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, ‘Crush It.’  Follow him on Instagram @garyvee for some good, hard, no bullshit advice that you need to hear!