The Things We Know

It's a strange moment to be talking about imposter syndrome when so many of the people running things appear utterly unburdened by self-doubt. In this episode, Kari and Lisa are joined by returning guest Charlotte Callahan — songwriter, actor, performer, and frontwoman of the all-female band, The Deffades, back from the Season 2 fan favorite Barbie in the Real World. Together they dig into the research behind imposter syndrome, the confidence-gap data that will make your jaw drop, and why Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani argues it's not a syndrome at all. It's a scheme. If imposter syndrome were cured by qualifications, most women would already be immune. Instead, many are still questioning themselves while watching audacity get rewarded as if it were expertise. If you've ever wondered whether you belong in the room, this conversation may leave you asking a different question entirely.

If this episode lands for you, you might be ready for a room full of women who get it. Join Kari and Lisa at the Best Chapter Yet Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon, for two and a half days of connection, reflection, laughter, and the chance to spend time with women who are done shrinking themselves to make everyone else comfortable. Details and registration at [link].

Find Kari and Lisa:

🎙 The Things We Know Podcast 📘 Facebook 📸 Instagram

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari Morin and Lisa Callahan make the case that fun isn't something you earn after you've crossed everything off the list — it's a genuine biological need, and the science backs them up. Drawing on the research of Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, and author Cyndie Spiegel's concept of microjoys, Kari and Lisa explore what actually happens to women who lose their relationship with play, why high-achieving women are especially vulnerable to fun deprivation, and how to find your way back even when the muscle feels completely gone.

They explore:

• What play deprivation actually looks like — and why it's not a character flaw

• The science that makes joy a requirement, not a luxury

• Why microjoys are always available even when life is heavy

• How to reclaim fun when you can't remember what you'd even enjoy anymore

If you've been serious and responsible and available to everyone around you for a very long time — this is your permission slip.

And since Kari and Lisa talk about how joy is better shared, join them at the Best Chapter Yet Fall Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon — two and a half days to exhale and remember what it feels like to be in your own life lightly. Spots are filling — grab yours here.

Find Kari and Lisa:

🎙 The Things We Know Podcast 📘 Facebook 📸 Instagram

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari and Lisa unpack a phrase they've both been saying more often lately — "I'm too old for that" — and ask what it actually means. Drawing on Ashton Applewhite's TED Talk on ageism, they explore how much of what women experience as "getting older" is learned cultural conditioning rather than anything inevitable. Then they get specific: naming what they're genuinely done with, and refusing the idea that desire, ambition, reinvention, and visibility have an expiration date.

In this episode, Kari and Lisa talk about:

• Why ageism — not aging itself — is what makes getting older hard

• How women are taught to edit themselves before life actually requires it

• What they're done with: people pleasing, performing, overriding their gut, staying in relationships out of habit

• Why reinvention, risk, and wanting more aren't just for younger people

• What gets clearer, easier, and more honest as you get older

• The difference between what you've outgrown and what you've been told to give up

Featured resource: Ashton Applewhite, Let's End Ageism (TED Talk) https://www.ted.com/talks/ashton_applewhite_let_s_end_ageism

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari and Lisa sit down with Angela Burk, author of Real Girls Guide to Midlife, for a conversation that doesn't try to tidy midlife into a transformation story. What they got instead was something more honest — and more useful. Angela writes and speaks about what midlife actually looks like: the identity shifts, the relationship reckonings, the body changes, the inherited stories about money and power, and the quiet grief of letting go of who you used to be. This one landed for both of them as recognition, not just agreement.

In this episode, Kari, Lisa, and Angela talk about:

• Why midlife feels like everything shifting at once — not one single change

• The grief of releasing past versions of yourself and why it's harder than anyone says

• What happens to relationships, partnerships, and desire in this season

• Menopause, body trust, and reclaiming pleasure on your own terms

• The money and power stories women inherited — and what shifts when they question them

• What sovereignty actually means and what it looks like to build a life on your own terms

• Solo aging, chosen family, and moving from fear of being alone to something more expansive

About Angela Burk: Angela Burk is an award-winning marketing strategist, mother of three, bonus mom to four, and author of Real Girls Guide to Midlife. She splits her time between California and Australia and writes about the real experience of midlife — without the polish, without the rush to reframe everything as positive, and without the pressure to handle it all quietly.

To learn more about Angela and her book, start here: https://www.realgirlsguide.com/

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari and Lisa talk with Los Angeles divorce attorney Sarah Intelligator about what actually causes relationships and marriages to break down over time and what people often miss in the early stages of dating and partnership.

After nearly two decades practicing family law, Sarah has seen recurring relationship patterns emerge in couples navigating divorce. She shares the most common warning signs of unhealthy relationships, why people ignore red flags, what keeps women stuck in unhappy partnerships, and how to rebuild trust in yourself after divorce or heartbreak.

The conversation explores:

• Early signs a relationship is becoming unhealthy

• Why women override their instincts in dating and marriage

• Common patterns that lead to divorce

• Emotional disconnection in long term relationships

• How to stop repeating relationship patterns

• Dating after divorce or heartbreak

• The difference between chemistry and compatibility

• What healthy relationships actually require over time

Sarah also discusses the "F-Words" she sees repeatedly in failing relationships and how greater self-awareness can help people make healthier relationship choices before reaching a breaking point.

If you are questioning a relationship, recovering from divorce, navigating dating after heartbreak, or trying to build a healthier partnership, this episode offers practical insight and honest perspective from someone who has seen what happens when relationships succeed and when they fall apart.

To purchase Sarah's book Live, Laugh, Find True Love: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding a Meaningful Relationship

⁠https://a.co/d/877FJss⁠

—----

Join Lisa and Kari at the Best Chapter Yet Fall Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon. It's two and a half days to exhale, reconnect, and be reminded that your best chapter is still ahead. Spots are filling — learn more and reserve yours here: bestchapteryetfall2026

Find Kari and Lisa:

🎙 The Things We Know Podcast 📘 Facebook 📸 Instagram

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari Morin and Lisa Callahan talk honestly about how relationships evolve over time — beyond the early butterflies and beyond the breaking points — into something quieter, deeper, and often more meaningful than we expected.

They explore:

• Why relationships can feel different even when nothing is "wrong"

• The slow emotional drift that can happen in long-term partnerships

• How to stay connected when life, stress, and identity changes shift the dynamic

• The grief of losing earlier versions of your relationship

• What it actually means to keep choosing your partner over time

You'll hear a grounded conversation about the small, daily moments that build real connection, and why love that shows up in patterns, consistency, and ordinary life may be the most lasting kind there is.

If your relationship feels like it's changing, if you're feeling some distance, or if you've wondered — Is this still good? Is this what love is supposed to become? — this episode offers reassurance, perspective, and a more honest definition of long-term love.

The cohosts also talk about why no partner can be everything, and how strong friendships — especially with other women who truly understand you — can strengthen your relationship rather than compete with it.

If you're craving that kind of connection, join Lisa and Kari at the Best Chapter Yet Fall Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon. It's two and a half days to exhale, reconnect, and be reminded that your best chapter is still ahead. Spots are filling — learn more and reserve yours here: bestchapteryetfall2026

Find Kari and Lisa:

🎙 The Things We Know Podcast 📘 Facebook 📸 Instagram

In this episode of The Things We Know, Kari and Lisa turn the mic on themselves. As coaches who spend most of their time asking the questions, they finally sit in the guest seat and answer the ones that get to something real fast. What do people get wrong about coaching? Who are they actually built to work with? What does someone really come to them for, even when they can't name it yet? And how do you know when you're ready?

This one is for any woman who has wondered whether coaching is for her — or who has been circling something she wants but hasn't quite let herself go after it yet.

In this episode, Kari and Lisa talk about:

• What people most commonly misunderstand about what coaches actually do

• Who their ideal clients are and what those women are usually navigating when they reach out

• What someone is really coming to coaching for — even when they don't say it that way at first

• What changes for a woman when she does this work

• The beliefs Kari and Lisa each had to let go of to coach the way they do now

• What makes this work harder than most people expect

• How to know if you're actually ready

• The songs that embody their coaching philosophy (yes, really)

Work with Kari or Lisa: Both offer an initial conversation that gets to the heart of what you actually want and what it takes to get there. By the end — whether you decide to work together or not — you'll know your next steps. 📅 Book here 📅 Book Here 💛 Mention the podcast and receive 10% off your first coaching package with either of them.

We sat down with Athena Dean Holtz for a conversation about something most women don't talk about enough — the decisions we make when we're hurting.

The ones that make sense at the time. The ones that cost us later. And the moment when you finally see the pattern and realize you can't keep doing it the same way.

We talk about wounded decision making, how women self-medicate with work, and what it actually takes to slow down long enough to recognize what's driving your choices. We also get into forgiveness, the difference between healing old wounds and living through current ones, and what real transformation looks like from the inside.

If you've ever looked back and thought, why did I choose that, this conversation will land.

And also this: you don't have to untangle it all on your own.

There is something powerful about stepping out of your day-to-day life and into a room with women who are doing this work too. Women who are honest, self-aware, and ready for something different:

Join Lisa and Kari at the next Best Chapter Yet Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon. Spots are filling — learn more:https://www.eventcreate.com/e/bestchapteryetfall2026

BRAND NEW! Join our Patreon for behind the scenes, bonus episodes and special discounts

https://patreon.com/TheThingsWeKnowPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Where to find Kari and Lisa:

The Things We Know Podcast Homepage

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThingWeKnowPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethingsweknowpod

We didn't plan this episode. We sat down and hit record because the news cycle last week was too much to ignore.

We talk about what women are actually absorbing right now. The stories that don't just stay in headlines, but land in our bodies. From political misconduct allegations to the exposure of online communities built around violating women, to the ongoing lack of accountability for powerful men.

And just as much, we talk about the response. The defensiveness. The "not all men" conversation and why it misses the point. The silence from men who consider themselves good, and the exhaustion women feel carrying that gap.

This is an unfiltered conversation about anger, grief, emotional labor, and what allyship actually requires right now.

And also this: you are not meant to hold all of this alone.

If you've been feeling the weight of it, being in a room with other women who get it isn't just nice, it's necessary.

Join Lisa and Kari at the next Best Chapter Yet Retreat, September 18–20 in Portland, Oregon. Spots are filling — learn more:https://www.eventcreate.com/e/bestchapteryetfall2026

BRAND NEW! Join our Patreon for behind the scenes, bonus episodes and special discounts

https://patreon.com/TheThingsWeKnowPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Where to find Kari and Lisa:

The Things We Know Podcast Homepage

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThingWeKnowPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethingsweknowpod

In this episode of The Things We Know, Lisa and Kari explore what happens when life doesn't match the vision board. Drawing from their coaching work and lived experience, they unpack why tools like intention setting and mindset can be powerful when they work, and why they can become painful or even shaming when reality intervenes. Together they examine the limits of manifestation culture, the role of grief and adaptation in seasons shaped by caregiving, illness, or disruption, and what research actually tells us about motivation and follow-through. The conversation moves toward a more honest and humane way of orienting our lives, one that holds intention and reality at the same time, honors desire without demanding outcomes, and makes room for compassion, flexibility, and growth in the lives we are actually living.

Want to create your next Best Chapter in real life? Join us in Portland, OR Sept 18-20. 2026 for our YOUnique and Amazing retreat.

https://www.eventcreate.com/e/bestchapteryetfall2026

BRAND NEW! Join our Patreon for behind the scenes, bonus episodes and special discounts

https://patreon.com/TheThingsWeKnowPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink