Rebecca Rowe trained at Pratt Institute and ESMOD Paris, ran her own clothing brand for eight years, and lost her entire collection - patterns included - the week a flood destroyed her apartment.  

What struck me wasn't so much the flood as what came after: an insurance adjuster telling her that her patterns (which took hundreds of hours of work) were worth $9 each. That's the moment I understood why she does what she does now. 

 We talk about: her eight-year-old self learning how to use a sewing machine; leaving for design school in New York at 17 without telling her parents until the acceptance letter arrived; the night the flood took her sewing machines and every pattern she owned; why she refuses to do "body type" analysis with clients and teaches anchor points instead; the five fashion theories she uses to find your real style; and the real reason women say "nothing fits" when they rarely mean it literally.  

I could've talked to Rebecca for four more hours. Ideally while we are both going through my closet!  

Who's your favourite shopping buddy? Send this episode to them.  

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

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Ro Nwosu spent years as one of the only Black movement instructors most Ottawa-area fitness studios called on when they needed to "do the diversity work" - often unpaid, feeling under-appreciated, and expected to make hard truths comfortable to hear.

This is something we cannot gloss over when we talk about her burnout - in fact, it's a direct cause. Listen in as Ro tells us how she turned "I'm the problem" from an accusation into a boundary. As someone who also suffered from burnout, that reframe cracked something open in me too.

We talk about the difference between being tired and being actually burnt out; why Ro now charges an extra $8,000 to "soften" how she talks about racism; the studio space she finally walked away from; the sabbatical that turned into a full identity rebuild; the two-year communication course she took because she couldn't say no without getting angry;  and the word she's chosen for who she's becoming - unmanageable.

This conversation didn't feel like two former studio owners talking shop. It felt like two women finally saying out loud what almost broke us.

Do me a favour and share it - pass it along to someone you thought of while listening.And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

This month's Mom & Sis episode started as advice for my nephew Connor, who's about to graduate high school, and ended with all three of us realizing we're still graduating into something new every few years, whether we call it that or not. Our own advice, mirrored back to ourselves, even at 48, 55 and 77. 

We talk about: the year Danielle and Nadine both moved out, and what Lorraine now calls the "freeing" side of watching her kids become independent; Danielle's advice to get off your phone and make eye contact with actual humans; Nadine's own post-university panic to have everything figured out immediately; the time Lorraine nearly burned down their London Airbnb, "Casa Rosa," ironing a shirt while the stovetop quietly melted a rubber mat down the hall; and why all three believe that you should surround yourself with people smarter than you and not look for the rooms where you feel smartest.

Know someone who's graduating into something new right now, with or without a cap and gown? Send this to them.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Megan Lendrum and Meagan Kribeiro are the makers behind the jewelry company, Daughters of the River. Introduced by a mutual friend, they ended up side by side at a creative market and, within weeks, became roommates, dear friends, and then business partners. 

Their story is a beautiful one - instead of treating each other as competition, they merged their client lists and skills, and built something even bigger and more beautiful together than either of them could have done alone. 

We talk about: the moment Megan started teaching Meagan wax casting instead of keeping her technique to herself; the jewelry program Megan got into and never attended because well-meaning family told her there was no money in art; the stranger Megan ran into at the grocery store wearing a ring she made four years earlier, at the exact moment she needed to hear it mattered; and the quote that runs their whole business - "when you have, give; when you learn, teach."

Watching two women build something together instead of guarding it from each other is its own kind of magic, and honestly, the opposite of how we're taught business is supposed to work.

Know two women who'd build something incredible together if they just met? Send them this.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

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Hillory Tenute got divorced. No one cheated. No one lied. No one did anything wrong - they just grew into two different people, and chose to let each other go with love instead of a fight.

What struck me wasn't the divorce, it's that she let a marriage go while keeping the friend who happened to also be her ex-husband. 

We talk about: the surgery in 2020 that changed how she felt in her own body, and how that quietly reshaped her marriage for years before either of them said it out loud; the walk where they both cried and admitted, "there's no solution here"; selling the house and moving into her own place - what she calls her "Margie era," named for the grandmother who told her "never be the secretary, be the CEO"; the solo trip to Europe that was equal parts grief and celebration and meeting her now-partner and building Matchee Matchee together. 

Going through a separation and wondering if it has to end in a war? Have a listen. 

Know someone that could use this take on conscious uncoupling, share this with them.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Sure, Amanda Ruddy knows how to throw a party, but this conversation is about so much more. It's about losing her mother to breast cancer and running an event three weeks later. It's about starting her event planning business and having to close it weeks later because of a global pandemic. It's about the grief-fueled resilience she didn't ask for, but used to keep going, smirking as she remembers thinking, "What's the worst that can happen? It already did."

We talk about: the six days between "she can come home from the hospital" and the phone call that changed everything; running Ottawa's Grey Cup Festival three weeks after her mother's funeral because she "couldn't not do it"; the moment in her dad's kitchen when she told him she was starting her own business, and how being "too fragile for anyone to tell her no" is what actually gave her the push; COVID hitting four months after her launch party, with zero income and a business too new to qualify for any support; the two years of building themed "party boxes" with local restaurants just to stay visible until doors reopened; and why she still believes someone's name can get them in the door, but it's not what keeps them there.

By the end of this one I wanted to reach out and give Amanda a ginormous hug. Six years ago she was tying ribbon on cardboard boxes. Now she's the person hundreds of people trust with the biggest day of their lives.

Know someone quietly rebuilding something after losing everything? This one's for them, please share it.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Mom watched me unnecessarily rack up student debt in my twenties and made a choice most parents wouldn't: she let me handle it myself.

And I'm not the only one - she's done this for all three of her kids, in different ways at different times in our lives. Watching, quietly running a sort of threat assessment even to this day. 

We talk about: my student loan and how I moved to Calgary after my master's degree with no network, and why she chose not to bail me out; the different way Lorraine worried about her son growing up versus her daughters; the phone call that made me briefly wonder if mom's memory was slipping; what changes, and what doesn't, about a mother's worry once her kids become parents themselves; and Lorraine's one unapologetic cigar with Uncle Bruce on New Year's Day, decades after she quit smoking.

Hearing your mom admit she still worries about you at 48 doesn't feel like a burden. It feels like proof you're still hers.

Send this to your mom, or the person who loved you like only a mother can. 

Better yet, call them after you listen.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Content warning: infant loss

When we left off, Emma Mitchell's daughter, Evie, had just been born at 23 weeks and 6 days. In part two, Emma picks up 118 days later - when the numbers finally stopped adding up, and she and Devin had to decide, together, how Evie's story would end.

Evie passed on December 10th; her due date had been December 5th; and by pure coincidence, the 10th was also Emma's mom's birthday - the birthday her mom always said Evie would be born on anyway. Emma calls it absurd to have to choose the day your child dies. She also calls it a gift she's grateful they got.

We talk about: the four-visitor hospital rule that meant Emma's own dad didn't meet his granddaughter for weeks; her brother Gordy, who found his own way to express his grief; the 43 minutes Evie lived after they removed her breathing support, spent singing to her and playing guitar; the six kangaroo care chairs the hospital bought after Emma pushed for them, so other families can hold their babies the way she wishes she'd been able to hold Evie more; and how she found her way back to herself six months later, on a pickleball court where nobody knew her story at all.

If you know someone carrying a loss like this, let them know you're still thinking of their baby. Emma told me that's the kindest thing anyone can do.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Content warning: infant loss

Emma Mitchell spent years assuming motherhood wasn't in the cards for her - until a chest X-ray for a bad case of pneumonia led her to check, almost as an afterthought, and the test came back with the darkest line she'd ever seen.

What got me is how much had to go right just for Emma and her partner, Devin, to meet their daughter, Evie, at all - a scare at eight weeks that looked like a miscarriage, a cervix that kept shortening past the point doctors thought possible, and a hospital stay built around an infection nobody could fully explain, all before Evie arrived at 23 weeks and 6 days, weighing 660 grams - a little over a pound.

We talk about: the 14-and-a-half-hour wait in an emergency room, certain they'd already lost the pregnancy; the rare hospital protocol that tested for infection before stitching her cervix shut, and why that test likely gave Evie the time she got; the moment Evie's cord snapped from how fast she arrived, and hearing her cry when no one expected to; and the brochures the hospital hands parents at each gestational week showing the odds, and why Emma tore hers up the moment they turned 23 weeks.

Emma is telling this story with a kind of clarity and honesty I don't think I could manage in her place, and I'm so grateful she trusted me with it.

We're picking this up next week in part two - Evie's 118 days, and the family who never stopped showing up for her.

If this resonates and you know someone who's walked something like this road, this might be worth sending them - gently, and with care.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod

Amira de Vera runs Project Four PR, the Toronto entertainment PR firm she founded in 2017, and she lives by something she calls the Burnt Toast Theory: every inconvience, missed exit, or delayed flight is protecting you from something you can't see yet.

And she traces this back through her life in many ways - from a toxic corporate PR job she quit on a hunch, to a devastating pandemic breakup that ended with a book called Trust the Universe literally showing up on her doorstep days later, to launching her own firm with eight freelance clients because her mom told her, "you're already doing it, just make it official."

We talk about: the difference between working hard and actually burning out, and how she's learned to tell which one she's in; representing Tom Cruise for a Toronto premiere and what he was actually like off-camera; her non-negotiable 5am morning routine; learning to sit with pain instead of outrunning it, after years of believing busy was the same thing as healed; and why she thinks nothing in her career, including the doors that slammed on her, has ever actually been random.

I left this conversation thinking of all my "burnt toast" moments, and an appreication for landing exactly where I have.

Know someone who feels like life keeps redirecting them? Send this episode their way.

And if you'd like more from me - my coaching or my writing - you'll find both over on my website, or catch the more personal stuff on my Substack. 

See you next week, on The Other Side x

@the_otherside_pod