Your Favorite You

I'm really fucking good at my job. And before you decide I’m an egomaniac, I want you to notice how uncomfortable that sentence may have just made you. I felt it too, that urge to soften it, qualify it, or follow it up with a joke so that nobody would think that I am getting too big for my britches.

But here’s the thing: the work we do is not an accident. I spent more than two decades in medicine and now nearly a decade in coaching, building my skills one session at a time. My guess is that you’ve put just as much time and effort into getting to where you are today, so why is it so common to deflect any acknowledgment of the impact we have?

In this episode, I’m not softening anything. I'm tooting my own goddamn horn on purpose, no matter how uncomfortable it is. I hope that by the end, you are going to want to toot your own goddamn horn, too.

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Think about a younger version of you who had no idea what was coming next. What would you tell her? Not to fix her or warn her, but to let her know that she makes it and it’s better than she could imagine.

I recently learned that someone I know will be attending my alma mater this fall and moving into the exact same dorm room I lived in as a freshman. It got me thinking about 18-year-old Melissa, who had no idea the life I'm living now was even possible. That inspired me to write a letter to my 1991 self, which I'm sharing in this episode, along with an invitation to write one to your younger self, too.

If you do write a letter to your younger self, I'd love for you to send it to me at [email protected]. With your permission, I'll anonymously share some of these letters on a future podcast episode so we can hear perspectives beyond my own.

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What happens when you shift your focus from trying to make everyone else happy to finally listening to yourself? In this episode, I’m joined by one of my amazing clients, Katie, who graciously shares how coaching helped her learn to rock the boat and transform her relationships.

When Katie started coaching with me in late 2024, her goals were to get to know herself better and figure out what she really wanted. You’ll hear how Katie achieved those objectives and more, and you’ll also get a glimpse into how receiving coaching is only the beginning of an ongoing journey. There isn't a finish line where you're finally "fixed," and choosing growth every day is far more rewarding than waiting to finally arrive.

If you're afraid of rocking the boat or disappointing the people around you, this conversation will encourage you to take that first step.

Dr. Katie Montgomery is a busy mom to three boys, a wife, and entrepreneur. She has owned her general dental practice in the Columbus, Ohio area for over 15 years and loves the challenge of being both a clinician and business owner. She has worked with Melissa for nearly two years with the goal of being her favorite you in all areas of her life.

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I’m so excited to introduce you to today’s guest, whom I’ve known and admired for the past 25 years. I met Dr. Bonnie Pugh during residency, and we've been friends ever since. Bonnie is a pediatrician at Central Ohio Primary Care, where she also serves as president of the board of directors.

I wanted to bring Bonnie on to talk about leadership and how she transitioned from just caring for patients to leading physicians and shaping the culture at COPC. Over the past two decades, Bonnie has helped build an environment that transforms the lives of both the physicians who work there and the patients they serve. She leads with both strength and emotional intelligence, which, if you know anything about high-achieving women, isn't always an easy balance to strike.

Beyond her accomplishments, Bonnie is continually learning to integrate every part of herself into a life she loves. She's a doctor, leader, mentor, yoga teacher, wife, mom, daughter, sister, and one of my favorite humans. I can’t wait for you to hear this conversation.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.

I named this podcast Your Favorite You because I believe your favorite version of yourself already exists within you. She's not someone you have to build from scratch—she's someone you uncover one choice at a time.

For this milestone episode, I’m talking about what your favorite you actually looks like in the quiet of an ordinary life. Because after 200 episodes, here’s what I know: Being your favorite you is almost never a grand gesture. It’s not the mountaintop. It happens in small moments, on random weekdays, and sometimes without you even realizing it. It's the yes turned into a no, the bad day at work you didn’t take home with you, and speaking up when you wouldn't have before.

Today, we’re exploring the tiny, sustainable, completely unglamorous, but absolutely life-changing shifts I've watched women make over and over again. Whether this is the first episode you’re listening to or the 200th, I want to say thank you, my favorite listeners. Thank you for being brave, and for doing the quiet work that nobody claps for. You are the reason Your Favorite You exists, and I’m so glad you’re here.

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Feeling comfortable in your body can be challenging when so much of what you’ve learned is incomplete, inaccurate, or shaped by shame. That’s why I’m welcoming back Dr. Nina Deep to help deepen our understanding of women’s bodies and tackle questions about anatomy, the existence of the G-spot, self-pleasure, and the myths many of us have carried for decades.

We explore real-life examples, but throughout the conversation, you'll hear the underlying themes of how medicine is patriarchal and the deep socialization of women to feel shame around our bodies. Change starts with education, curiosity, and learning to connect with our bodies, and it's never too late to begin.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Ep 191: It's Called The Clitoris with Nina Deep, MD
• The Disappearance of Shere Hite
• Becoming Cliterate by Dr. Laurie Mintz
• Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski
• She Comes First by Ian Kerner
• bellesa.co
• OMGYES
• ninadeep.com
• itscalledtheclitoris.com 

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We spend an extraordinary amount of our lives preparing to live them: working toward the thing, achieving the next milestone, building toward a future version of ourselves and our circumstances that will finally feel like enough.

We’re so focused on the arrival, but grief—real, irreversible, stopping-you-in-your-tracks grief—has a brutal and clarifying way of revealing that the moment we’ve been waiting to arrive in is happening right now. There is no future version of you or your life that is more real or more valuable than this one.

This episode is a little different. I don't have a tidy takeaway, three steps, or a framework for you to try. What I have is a sentence, and I hope something in it lands for you the way it landed for me:

"But you're here now. Don't waste a minute.”

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We spend so much time talking about how to achieve success—how to work toward it, how to stay motivated, and how to push through the tough parts—but we don't talk nearly enough about what happens when success actually arrives. And on the flip side, what happens when you've been riding high and then things get hard again?

Success can be just as destabilizing as struggle. And when you're used to succeeding, struggle can feel catastrophic in ways that are out of proportion to what's actually happening. Both of these experiences point to the same underlying issue: identity. What happens when your external circumstances stop matching the internal picture you have of yourself?

Today, we're exploring both sides of that equation because I've lived both sides of it, and chances are, you have too.

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What if you thought about boredom not as a problem you need to fix, but fertile ground from which insight, self-knowledge, and genuine rest can grow?

Think about this: When you have an unexpected opening in your day—a canceled meeting, an hour with nothing scheduled, or a to-do list that's actually manageable for once—what does it feel like? For some of you, there is an exhale of "oh, thank goodness." For a lot of you, there was something closer to a low-grade panic: a quick mental scramble to fill the space and to find something productive to do.

​In this episode, I talk about what boredom actually is, why so many of us are uncomfortable with it, and what we lose when we never allow ourselves to experience it. Because making friends with a little more stillness can help us reconnect with ourselves, our creativity, and the version of us that's been waiting for room to breathe.

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When was the last time you did something to take care of yourself and actually felt better after? Not just distracted or temporarily relieved, but genuinely, truly better.

We have a cultural obsession with self-care. The idea is everywhere—on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and Instagram—yet so many of the things we call self-care are actually ways of numbing. Today I’m unpacking the difference between the two and explaining why real self-care often looks different from what we expect.

And let me be clear: there is no shame in numbing. We’ve all been there. My goal is to help you recognize the difference so you can make intentional choices about how you care for yourself. Real self-care is one of the most loving, radical, important things you can do, and it is a foundational part of becoming your favorite you.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.