September 3, 2025 • 25 mins
In the season two premiere, Kristen warmly welcomes listeners back after an extended summer break, sharing a personal update and reflections from her “pause and playback” time. She recounts a summer filled with relaxation, growth, and memorable experiences, including a transformative book club trip, family vacations, concert adventures, pool days, and an impressive reading list. Kristen reflects on the lessons she learned about authenticity, people-pleasing, and intentional social media use. Looking ahead, she introduces the focus for season two: personal growth, leadership, burnout, and following one’s passions. With plans for topic-focused months and engaging guest stories, Kristen sets the stage for an inspiring and thoughtful season, encouraging both new and returning listeners to join her journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristen (00:01):
Hey everybody, welcome back.
It's funny that I'm sayingwelcome back to you'cause really
this is a welcome back for me.
Some of you may have forgot whoI am, or maybe there's some new
listeners who really don't haveany idea who I am.
So we'll do a little catch up.
It'll feel like we never evenleft.
Where did we leave off?
I told you guys at the end ofJune, I was gonna take a pause
(00:24):
and playback time and I had allthese things I was gonna do to
relax, refresh, rest, all ofthat, and we will get into that.
But I definitely was gone a weebit longer than I planned, so
we'll talk about that too.
So, yeah, I said that I wasgonna take off July and I would
come back in August I hadintentions to do that, but
(00:47):
honestly, the summer was goingso great and I was doing so many
other things that I kept puttingoff podcast stuff because I was,
living my best life.
More days went past, more weekswent past, and I was like, I've
gotta get back to podcasting.
I really did want to, but it waslike.
When you stop doing somethingand then the longer you go not
(01:08):
doing it, the harder it is tostart it.
And then there was guilt.
I knew I had people waiting forit and people were asking about
it and I'm like, I really needto do it.
But it was like I was almostimmobilized.
That's a pretty good word forit.
Like I just felt.
Stuck, like I wasn't ready.
I had all these ideas.
I have lots of topics that Iwanna cover and we will, but I
(01:32):
really thought in the off seasonI was going to do more planning.
I was gonna come up withoutlines and schedules, and I
was gonna line up my guests andI was gonna be so prepared and
ready to come back for seasontwo.
Spoiler alert, that didn'thappen.
I do have ideas and I have alittle notebook with lists, and
(01:52):
I do have some guests that havesaid yes.
I just haven't put all the workinto it.
But we are going to, and here'sthe thing.
Everything starts with one step,and this episode is our one step
into season two.
And I do wanna tell you aboutseason two, but first.
Let's do a little catch up aboutwhat I've been doing while I've
(02:13):
been gone, while it was a veryrestful and relaxing time,
before recording, I went back tomy notes from the season finale
episode of season one, where Ikind of laid out all these
things I wanted to do over thesummer and books I was going to
read.
And I am here to report to allof you.
(02:34):
I think I accomplished nearlyeverything I said I was gonna
do.
We'll break that down a littlebit and then we will talk about
season two and really get hypedabout it'cause I promise it is
exciting and I do wanna saythank you.
I'll probably say this a coupletimes today, but I do wanna
thank those of you who havestuck around, just absent from
(02:55):
social media for the most part.
I think I had two or three postsI put on Instagram the entire
time, and one of them wasliterally, Hey guys, I am still
alive.
So that was just, I felt like Ihad to put it out there because
I wasn't.
Active at all, so, yeah, let'stake a quick look back at how my
(03:17):
summer was.
I had talked about reallyfocusing on rest, relaxing, and
refreshing.
And I talked about how that wasgonna be, what it looked like to
me and things I was gonna do.
One of the things I was soexcited about was my book Club
Trip.
Let me tell you guys one, if youdon't have a book club, get a
(03:39):
book club two.
If your book club doesn't go ontrips, encourage them to go on
trips or find a better bookclub.
You may recall I was a littlenervous about it because I had
never met any of the girls inreal life it was me on a solo
road trip, almost five hoursaway.
To, go to a house and spend aweekend with people I'd never
(04:02):
met before.
It was the most amazing weekend.
We went to a little town inIndiana and stayed in a cabin.
We had a campfire the firstnight and made hot dogs and
s'mores and just talked and gotto know each other on a
different level than what we hadbefore.
(04:22):
And it was so fun.
We ended up playing games.
There was a mouse.
That was a whole situation initself.
We did get the mass out.
All was well.
The next day we went into townand visited the little shops,
several different coffee placesand kind of touristy things.
Had the best cinnamon roll ever.
(04:43):
I actually did post a reel forthe trip, so if you go back to
my Instagram, you can watch thatand kind of get an idea of how
the trip was went to a littlebookstore.
We went to this, body productstore.
It reminded me of lush, and Igot a lip balm.
Called marshmallow fluff you mayrecall when I talked about my
favorite products, there wasthis other lip balm that I'm
(05:06):
obsessed with, which I still am.
It's, the one on my nightstand,but this marshmallow fluff one.
Years ago when I was in highschool, which according to my
son was like back when dinosaursroamed the earth.
I had a lip smackers, addictionlips, smackers is the Bonnie
Bell.
Lip balm, lip gloss, whatever.
I was addicted, whichapparently, if you actually look
(05:27):
at it, you can't physically beaddicted to it.
But there is like this mentaladdiction.
I was addicted.
But my favorite, favorite flavorwas called Martian Maow.
And it was like a shimmery whiteone.
It came from one of their cosmiclines or something, and it was
my favorite, favorite lip balm.
I am not even kidding you.
(05:49):
This marshmallow fluff from thislittle store in Indiana.
Smells exactly the same.
It's like I'm taken back to 1999or 2000 or something.
And it is amazing.
Not only the smell, the textureof it, it's just, ugh, it's
amazing.
Maybe you should all go and buythis marshmallow, fluff lip
(06:09):
balm.
This is not ad, this is notsponsored.
It's literally me just sayinghow much I love this lip balm.
So, anyway.
That day was great.
Next day we did a hot tub.
We read, we sat around andtalked.
We napped.
It was the most relaxingvacation trip I had ever had.
(06:30):
And what I think was best aboutit was that these girls, even
though I never met them in reallife, and we've only talked,
once every two months for whenwe get together for a book club.
It was almost easier becausethere were no.
Expectations, like I didn't feellike I had to be somebody else,
which, if you've been listeningto this podcast through season
(06:52):
one, you know I have struggledwith people pleasing and trying
to be what I think people wantme to be.
And I don't know if it's becauseI'm old now and I don't care as
much what people think.
Or if it's because I had kind ofworked through some of that in
season one and was at a placewhere I was more comfortable
with myself, I just am at apoint where I can be myself
(07:14):
around people, and it's probablyone of the first times I have
ever felt that, even when I goto events with people I know,
afterwards, it's always that,oh, I shouldn't have said that.
Oh, what did they think?
Oh, why did I do that?
I don't think I ever felt thaton this trip.
This is who I am.
They can like me or not.
I don't care.
I'm not pretending.
I'm not being fake.
(07:34):
I'm not squashing who I am totry to fit in a mold That
probably isn't even true becauseI've made it up in my head.
That was such a growth momentfor me over the summer, just
like the best ever.
So the trip was amazing.
We all had such a great timethat we agreed to do it again
next summer and I'm going to beplanning it, so that'll be fun.
(07:58):
I was so excited when I gotback.
I already started looking atlocations checking different
areas and focusing on budget anddistance took some time for me
not coming back to podcastsbecause I was like in my
planning mode for other things.
Anyway, that was great.
I had also said that over thesummer my son and I were gonna
go to some concerts and we did,we went to, a local band.
(08:21):
They're not local to us, butthey come up every year and we
go see them and that was great,but the big event was going to
see a JR and oh my gosh, we hadwatched their show from last
year online and it was great.
But being there in real life.
Oh, it was amazing.
(08:41):
It really was for my son'causeit's one of his favorite bands.
And I bought tickets on hisbirthday for in March for us to
go.
We had to wait until the, middleof summer to go to it.
Totally worth it.
Seeing their performance.
They are performers.
They aren't just musicians.
The whole thing was aperformance.
The last song, they had amarching band come in if you get
(09:05):
a chance, go onto YouTube.
People have shown clips from theshow.
You can see parts of it.
It was just amazing and if youever get the opportunity to see
a JR take it.
They're amazing.
It was wonderful.
Their new album actually comesout at the end of this week, so
on September 5th you can listento new a JR music.
(09:26):
We are very excited about that.
My son and I had a lot of pooldays.
It was an extremely hot summer,miserably hot.
We spent a lot of time at thepool, which was wonderful.
We have a community pool hangingout with our friends, like moms,
we'll all hang out, he'll hangout with his friends.
(09:46):
It's a really nice timesometimes we'll go by ourselves
and, you know, throw a ballaround or just talk.
Like it's just a really nicetime.
So we got a lot of pool days in.
I had provided a list of booksthat I wanted to read over the
summer, and I am happy toreport.
I read all of them.
The books that I had listedwere, let me check my notes.
(10:09):
I had said I was going to bereading four wins Atmosphere.
Sounds like Love The Girls wesent away.
And I did read all of those.
Four wins was just as good as Iremember.
It is still a five star book forme.
(10:31):
Kristin Hannah, amazing.
If you don't know much about theDust Bowl, it's totally worth
reading to explain the Dust Bowland just an all around amazing
book atmosphere by TaylorJenkins.
Read that book just came outthis year.
So good.
It was so good.
It was actually on sale onAmazon last week.
(10:52):
I don't know if it still is, buteven if it's not on sale, it's
totally worth reading.
I posted it on, my Bookstagram,one of the only posts I posted
on Bookstagram.
We'll come back to that in aminute.
But I had posted about it andsaid, if you love Taylor
Jenkins, read, if you love nasa,if you love the eighties, if you
love crying a little bit, thenyou'll want to read this book.
(11:15):
It was so good.
I did finally get to read SoundsLike Love.
I went to meet Ashley Postonearlier this year and got a
signed copy of the book.
She signed almost all my booksof hers that I had.
Remember seven year slip.
My favorite all time books.
Sounds like love was anextremely cute story.
It still didn't quite make it toseven year slip, but it was very
(11:37):
enjoyable.
Just a fun light read.
The Girls We Sent Away was agood book too.
I had listened to that one andthat was my book, girls Guide
Reading Through the Decades.
That was my book for the 1960s.
Then for my book set in the1970s, I read The Great Alone by
(11:57):
Kristin Hannah.
Huh?
If I thought four wins wasamazing, this book was like even
more amazing.
Now, what I have found, and Ithink I could probably do a
whole episode on this topicsometime, I'll probably set up a
poll and get you guys to weighin on this.
There are a lot of KristinHannah fans, but I think all
(12:20):
Kristin Hannah fans fall intoone camp what I mean by that is
while we all love her books,people will pick one of her
books and it's their favoriteand that's the one they stick
with all the time.
Like if you remember Twilight,you know, team Jacob, team
Edward, things like that.
Even Laguna Beach, right?
(12:41):
Like your team Kristen, or Teamlc, I feel like that's how
Kristin Hannah Books are andyour team.
The Nightingale, or your team,the women or whatever.
Because I feel like so manypeople are like, oh, the
Nightingale is my favorite.
Kristin Hannah book.
Listen People, the Nightingaleis a very good book.
I enjoyed it.
It was a lovely read.
(13:03):
The grade alone though.
Oh my gosh.
Rips your heart out.
Pieces it back together, cracksit again.
I was literally.
Falling in bed when I wasfinishing that book.
And my husband looked at me andhe's like, what is wrong with
you?
And I said, it's just this book.
He's like, it's just a book.
(13:24):
And I'm like, you don'tunderstand.
He's like, they're not realpeople.
And I'm like, but she writeslike they're, and like, I am
just a blubbering mess, becausethat book was so beautiful.
All right, let me know.
Send me a message, drop it inthe comments, what team are you
(13:45):
on when it comes to KristinHannah Books?
I'm really curious and I willmake a poll of it, we'll make a
whole episode of it at somepoint because I firmly believe
this, that people are on a teamor a camp in Kristen, Hannah
books, so other ways that Irested, relaxed, refreshed.
I caught up on some Netflixshows.
(14:07):
Got into Sullivan's Crossing.
Oh my gosh.
How did I not know about thisshow before?
I think I did hear somethingabout it when it was coming out
because it had talked about ifyou like Virgin River, if you
like Gilmore Girls, there's thisperfect show for you.
Hey, guess what?
I do love Virgin River.
I do love Gilmore Girls, andSullivan's Crossing was the
exact perfect show I needed.
(14:28):
I went through season one,season two.
I know season three is outthere, and I have watched the
first two or three episodes.
I'm trying to not rush throughit because once it's over then
it's over.
I don't know if there's gonna bea season four or not.
At least if I don't watch themall, I will still have some to
watch.
So I watched that.
(14:49):
I feel like I watched somethingelse.
There were a few other.
Little shows I watch, oh, I gotreally big onto YouTube of
watching Ryan Trehan channel.
So Ryan and his wife Hailey, whohas a book coming out next year
called Just Friends.
I think it'll be amazing.
I've already pre-ordered it, soclearly I'm all in.
(15:10):
Over the summer they did a 50.
States in 50 days fundraiser forSt.
Jude.
They had to stay in an Airbnb ina different state every day.
And ranked them to find outwhich one was the best Airbnb in
the nation.
It was so fun to see them, ittrying new things, spending time
together as a couple, seeing theAirbnbs, it just, it was so
(15:33):
wholesome.
So my son and I would watch thattogether.
And that was just a fun thing wedid too.
So overall it was amazing.
We had a family vacation at theend of the summer, which was
kind of unplanned.
It was one of those, oh my gosh,you're going back to school.
We should totally do somethingbefore you have to go back to
school.
So we went out of town at one ofour favorite places and had just
(15:54):
a little, you know, four or fivedays away, just a nice time to
reconnect as a family and.
I have one last hoorah before,like we all got back to regular
life and schedules overall it'sa fabulous, fabulous summer.
So what did I not do that I saidI was going to do?
(16:16):
Well, I'd said I was gonna do adigital detox and get better
about not being on my phone allthe time, and I have gotten
better.
I will say there are some dayswhere I'm not on it all and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I didn't evencheck my Facebook today.
And there's other days whereafter work, I'm just kind of
empty and I just find myself.
You know, getting into the doomscrolling.
(16:37):
So it is something I am stillworking on.
I have made improvements to it,but I did not unplug as much as
I thought I was going to, sowe're still working on that.
The other thing, funny enough,is I said that I was going to
get better with my books toGraham and go back to posting
reviews and trying to be moreactive over there.
(17:01):
That didn't happen either.
And it's funny because, I couldsay, oh well,'cause I'm trying
to be off social media more so Iwasn't posting as much there.
And that is kind of it, and kindof was just like, what's the
point?
I mean, honestly, it's good forme to do my book reviews there
because I find sometimes I'll goto my Good Reads and I'll see a
(17:23):
book and I'll give it like threeor four, stars.
I'm like, what was it evenabout?
What did I like about it?
And when I was doing fullreviews on my book Instagram,
then I could go back and say,oh, that's right.
That's what I liked about it, orthat's what I didn't like about
it.
That part was nice, but at thesame time I'm like, it is so
much work and I just kind oflost interest in it, not in the
(17:43):
community.
I still went to several authorevents.
I still keep up with theMissouri Book Girls Chat.
There's still people that I'mfollowing and liking their
stuff, but I feel like when I goon social media now, it's for
more of a purpose.
The purpose is watchingcorporate memes and reels and
(18:05):
sharing things with my friendsthat make us laugh.
That's kind of more what mysocial media waray is now.
Is that the right word?
Foray.
I, I don't know.
What I find myself doing now isreally going on and just sending
reels that are funny to some ofmy friends, and that's what we
(18:25):
do.
We communicate and sendingreels, there's a couple of my
friends that we do that a lot.
What's funny is like if we sendthe same one to each other or
like, oh, you sent it to me, Ithink I sent it to you a couple
weeks ago it's fun.
So really, that's kind of whatI've been using it more for now.
But again, like being morepurposeful with it, honestly, I
don't know that I'll keep mybooks Instagram going or not.
(18:48):
I mean, there's nothing wrongwith having it open, but I don't
know how active I'm going to beon it.
Honestly don't know how activeI'm gonna be on my podcast
Instagram, either.
Probably a little bit more.
I think I talked about at theend of last season too, when I
go and post something on socialmedia, I really do stop and
think, why am I posting this?
What am I posting this for?
(19:09):
Who am I posting this for?
I have been more purposeful withwhat I post and share.
So I have made some progress inthat also.
So now that we've had a fullrecap and caught you up on where
I've been and what I've beendoing for the past two plus
(19:29):
months.
Now we'll talk about what youprobably really wanna know, and
it's, so what are we doing forseason two?
I am very excited for seasontwo.
I know I didn't get into all theplanning that I wanted to, but I
still believe is going to be anamazing, amazing season.
So season one was kind ofintrospective, learning about
(19:50):
ourselves, dealing withinsecurities, challenges, things
like that.
Season two is going to build onthat with personal growth, but I
also want to focus on burnoutleadership and people following
their passions.
You may think, well, Kristen,those sound a little all over
(20:11):
the place.
They do, but they all line upthe same in my brain.
Because these are areas that I'mworking on and that I am
interested in and that I thinkare important for others.
It doesn't matter where you arein your life.
If you are a student, if you area stay at home parent, a.
(20:31):
Corporate person or a boss babe,or whatever you are.
I feel like personal growth issomething we can all work on.
Leadership is something I'mpassionate about.
I got a degree in it and, I seeso many examples of good and bad
leadership.
Leadership is everywhere.
It's in the workplace.
It's, you know, in your friendgroup.
(20:53):
It's.
With the sports teams, it's inyour community.
There's so much leadershipeverywhere, and I think that
being a good leader in whateverenvironment you're in is
something we can all work onpeople following their passions.
Is something I am passionateabout and part of it is because
I am, what you would call riskadverse.
(21:15):
And I prefer stability,security, and I'm not one to
take big risks, but throughoutthe past year I have encountered
people who have just left theirjob to try something completely
different.
People who have found somethingthey're passionate about and
really go on to do great thingswith that.
(21:36):
I want to share those storiesand offer people.
Insights and the courage tofollow their passions.
I don't know exactly where we'regonna go with that, but that's
something I really do want tolook into.
I love talking with peoplehaving guests on and having
people share their stories.
So if you are one of thosepeople that has followed your
(21:58):
passion or has a leadershipstory or has thoughts on
personal growth, I would love tohave you on.
You can always reach out to meon email.
You can go to the website,Instagram, Facebook page, and
you can just go to my Calendlypick a time and we'll talk about
things and it'll be amazing.
(22:20):
I know Alexis does, and I thinkKelly would probably be up for
it, is doing another book clubtoo.
So we'll be looking at somethingthere.
I have a couple of books inmind, but honestly I don't know
that I can get Alexis and Kellyto agree to them because they're
nonfiction books.
(22:41):
Since we're talking aboutpersonal growth and development,
I wanted to have something kindof on that brand.
We will see where we go fromthere, the plan right now is to
kind of do topic months, sowe'll focus on things each
month, but honestly, dependingon how scheduling works out and
who's available when it may, itmay sway a little from this
(23:04):
schedule.
But we'll be looking at some,personal evolution kind of ways
we've changed, looking at that.
Progress we've made from lastseason.
We'll be talking aboutleadership and identity.
We'll talk about ambition,burnout, and boundaries.
And then we'll talk about timegrowth and looking ahead.
(23:25):
And that's again, us throughDecember where I anticipate we
will take another brief pause.
I promise it'll be brief thattime.
I promise.
Because it'll be winter and whatelse will I have to do, but lock
myself in my studio where it'swarm and just talk.
Right?
So that's the plan.
We are finally kicking it off inSeptember.
(23:46):
Yay.
The plan is to go Septemberthrough, probably early to
mid-December and do a littleholiday break and then, come
back again.
In, January, February time.
So that's kind of what I amlooking at.
So I am back.
We are back together.
It is so good to be talking withyou again, I am so excited for
(24:10):
season two and thankful forthose of you who have waited.
For me to come back.
Also excited for new listenerswho are going to join in.
I encourage you to go back andlisten to season one, whether
you are a new or seasoned,listener, because there was a
lot of good stuff back there.
We did touch on burnout andboundaries a little bit in
(24:32):
season one, so probably be goodto go back and listen to those
episodes.
Before we, barge into them all.
In season two, there were alsosome good book episodes.
There were some insecurityepisodes.
There was a lot of good, we hada lot of good guests.
Learning about friendship andfriendship stories.
Paige and Amber's story was abig one.
Taylor's story Recovery is agood one.
(24:54):
Like there were a lot of goodepisodes in season one.
And I promise you, there's gonnabe even more good, more, better,
more amazing episodes coming inseason two.
So stay tuned.
I'm excited about all of it.
All right, talk to you later.
Hey everybody, welcome back.
It's funny that I'm sayingwelcome back to you'cause really
this is a welcome back for me.
Some of you may have forgot whoI am, or maybe there's some new
listeners who really don't haveany idea who I am.
So we'll do a little catch up.
It'll feel like we never evenleft.
Where did we leave off?
I told you guys at the end ofJune, I was gonna take a pause
(00:24):
and playback time and I had allthese things I was gonna do to
relax, refresh, rest, all ofthat, and we will get into that.
But I definitely was gone a weebit longer than I planned, so
we'll talk about that too.
So, yeah, I said that I wasgonna take off July and I would
come back in August I hadintentions to do that, but
(00:47):
honestly, the summer was goingso great and I was doing so many
other things that I kept puttingoff podcast stuff because I was,
living my best life.
More days went past, more weekswent past, and I was like, I've
gotta get back to podcasting.
I really did want to, but it waslike.
When you stop doing somethingand then the longer you go not
(01:08):
doing it, the harder it is tostart it.
And then there was guilt.
I knew I had people waiting forit and people were asking about
it and I'm like, I really needto do it.
But it was like I was almostimmobilized.
That's a pretty good word forit.
Like I just felt.
Stuck, like I wasn't ready.
I had all these ideas.
I have lots of topics that Iwanna cover and we will, but I
(01:32):
really thought in the off seasonI was going to do more planning.
I was gonna come up withoutlines and schedules, and I
was gonna line up my guests andI was gonna be so prepared and
ready to come back for seasontwo.
Spoiler alert, that didn'thappen.
I do have ideas and I have alittle notebook with lists, and
(01:52):
I do have some guests that havesaid yes.
I just haven't put all the workinto it.
But we are going to, and here'sthe thing.
Everything starts with one step,and this episode is our one step
into season two.
And I do wanna tell you aboutseason two, but first.
Let's do a little catch up aboutwhat I've been doing while I've
(02:13):
been gone, while it was a veryrestful and relaxing time,
before recording, I went back tomy notes from the season finale
episode of season one, where Ikind of laid out all these
things I wanted to do over thesummer and books I was going to
read.
And I am here to report to allof you.
(02:34):
I think I accomplished nearlyeverything I said I was gonna
do.
We'll break that down a littlebit and then we will talk about
season two and really get hypedabout it'cause I promise it is
exciting and I do wanna saythank you.
I'll probably say this a coupletimes today, but I do wanna
thank those of you who havestuck around, just absent from
(02:55):
social media for the most part.
I think I had two or three postsI put on Instagram the entire
time, and one of them wasliterally, Hey guys, I am still
alive.
So that was just, I felt like Ihad to put it out there because
I wasn't.
Active at all, so, yeah, let'stake a quick look back at how my
(03:17):
summer was.
I had talked about reallyfocusing on rest, relaxing, and
refreshing.
And I talked about how that wasgonna be, what it looked like to
me and things I was gonna do.
One of the things I was soexcited about was my book Club
Trip.
Let me tell you guys one, if youdon't have a book club, get a
(03:39):
book club two.
If your book club doesn't go ontrips, encourage them to go on
trips or find a better bookclub.
You may recall I was a littlenervous about it because I had
never met any of the girls inreal life it was me on a solo
road trip, almost five hoursaway.
To, go to a house and spend aweekend with people I'd never
(04:02):
met before.
It was the most amazing weekend.
We went to a little town inIndiana and stayed in a cabin.
We had a campfire the firstnight and made hot dogs and
s'mores and just talked and gotto know each other on a
different level than what we hadbefore.
(04:22):
And it was so fun.
We ended up playing games.
There was a mouse.
That was a whole situation initself.
We did get the mass out.
All was well.
The next day we went into townand visited the little shops,
several different coffee placesand kind of touristy things.
Had the best cinnamon roll ever.
(04:43):
I actually did post a reel forthe trip, so if you go back to
my Instagram, you can watch thatand kind of get an idea of how
the trip was went to a littlebookstore.
We went to this, body productstore.
It reminded me of lush, and Igot a lip balm.
Called marshmallow fluff you mayrecall when I talked about my
favorite products, there wasthis other lip balm that I'm
(05:06):
obsessed with, which I still am.
It's, the one on my nightstand,but this marshmallow fluff one.
Years ago when I was in highschool, which according to my
son was like back when dinosaursroamed the earth.
I had a lip smackers, addictionlips, smackers is the Bonnie
Bell.
Lip balm, lip gloss, whatever.
I was addicted, whichapparently, if you actually look
(05:27):
at it, you can't physically beaddicted to it.
But there is like this mentaladdiction.
I was addicted.
But my favorite, favorite flavorwas called Martian Maow.
And it was like a shimmery whiteone.
It came from one of their cosmiclines or something, and it was
my favorite, favorite lip balm.
I am not even kidding you.
(05:49):
This marshmallow fluff from thislittle store in Indiana.
Smells exactly the same.
It's like I'm taken back to 1999or 2000 or something.
And it is amazing.
Not only the smell, the textureof it, it's just, ugh, it's
amazing.
Maybe you should all go and buythis marshmallow, fluff lip
(06:09):
balm.
This is not ad, this is notsponsored.
It's literally me just sayinghow much I love this lip balm.
So, anyway.
That day was great.
Next day we did a hot tub.
We read, we sat around andtalked.
We napped.
It was the most relaxingvacation trip I had ever had.
(06:30):
And what I think was best aboutit was that these girls, even
though I never met them in reallife, and we've only talked,
once every two months for whenwe get together for a book club.
It was almost easier becausethere were no.
Expectations, like I didn't feellike I had to be somebody else,
which, if you've been listeningto this podcast through season
(06:52):
one, you know I have struggledwith people pleasing and trying
to be what I think people wantme to be.
And I don't know if it's becauseI'm old now and I don't care as
much what people think.
Or if it's because I had kind ofworked through some of that in
season one and was at a placewhere I was more comfortable
with myself, I just am at apoint where I can be myself
(07:14):
around people, and it's probablyone of the first times I have
ever felt that, even when I goto events with people I know,
afterwards, it's always that,oh, I shouldn't have said that.
Oh, what did they think?
Oh, why did I do that?
I don't think I ever felt thaton this trip.
This is who I am.
They can like me or not.
I don't care.
I'm not pretending.
I'm not being fake.
(07:34):
I'm not squashing who I am totry to fit in a mold That
probably isn't even true becauseI've made it up in my head.
That was such a growth momentfor me over the summer, just
like the best ever.
So the trip was amazing.
We all had such a great timethat we agreed to do it again
next summer and I'm going to beplanning it, so that'll be fun.
(07:58):
I was so excited when I gotback.
I already started looking atlocations checking different
areas and focusing on budget anddistance took some time for me
not coming back to podcastsbecause I was like in my
planning mode for other things.
Anyway, that was great.
I had also said that over thesummer my son and I were gonna
go to some concerts and we did,we went to, a local band.
(08:21):
They're not local to us, butthey come up every year and we
go see them and that was great,but the big event was going to
see a JR and oh my gosh, we hadwatched their show from last
year online and it was great.
But being there in real life.
Oh, it was amazing.
(08:41):
It really was for my son'causeit's one of his favorite bands.
And I bought tickets on hisbirthday for in March for us to
go.
We had to wait until the, middleof summer to go to it.
Totally worth it.
Seeing their performance.
They are performers.
They aren't just musicians.
The whole thing was aperformance.
The last song, they had amarching band come in if you get
(09:05):
a chance, go onto YouTube.
People have shown clips from theshow.
You can see parts of it.
It was just amazing and if youever get the opportunity to see
a JR take it.
They're amazing.
It was wonderful.
Their new album actually comesout at the end of this week, so
on September 5th you can listento new a JR music.
(09:26):
We are very excited about that.
My son and I had a lot of pooldays.
It was an extremely hot summer,miserably hot.
We spent a lot of time at thepool, which was wonderful.
We have a community pool hangingout with our friends, like moms,
we'll all hang out, he'll hangout with his friends.
(09:46):
It's a really nice timesometimes we'll go by ourselves
and, you know, throw a ballaround or just talk.
Like it's just a really nicetime.
So we got a lot of pool days in.
I had provided a list of booksthat I wanted to read over the
summer, and I am happy toreport.
I read all of them.
The books that I had listedwere, let me check my notes.
(10:09):
I had said I was going to bereading four wins Atmosphere.
Sounds like Love The Girls wesent away.
And I did read all of those.
Four wins was just as good as Iremember.
It is still a five star book forme.
(10:31):
Kristin Hannah, amazing.
If you don't know much about theDust Bowl, it's totally worth
reading to explain the Dust Bowland just an all around amazing
book atmosphere by TaylorJenkins.
Read that book just came outthis year.
So good.
It was so good.
It was actually on sale onAmazon last week.
(10:52):
I don't know if it still is, buteven if it's not on sale, it's
totally worth reading.
I posted it on, my Bookstagram,one of the only posts I posted
on Bookstagram.
We'll come back to that in aminute.
But I had posted about it andsaid, if you love Taylor
Jenkins, read, if you love nasa,if you love the eighties, if you
love crying a little bit, thenyou'll want to read this book.
(11:15):
It was so good.
I did finally get to read SoundsLike Love.
I went to meet Ashley Postonearlier this year and got a
signed copy of the book.
She signed almost all my booksof hers that I had.
Remember seven year slip.
My favorite all time books.
Sounds like love was anextremely cute story.
It still didn't quite make it toseven year slip, but it was very
(11:37):
enjoyable.
Just a fun light read.
The Girls We Sent Away was agood book too.
I had listened to that one andthat was my book, girls Guide
Reading Through the Decades.
That was my book for the 1960s.
Then for my book set in the1970s, I read The Great Alone by
(11:57):
Kristin Hannah.
Huh?
If I thought four wins wasamazing, this book was like even
more amazing.
Now, what I have found, and Ithink I could probably do a
whole episode on this topicsometime, I'll probably set up a
poll and get you guys to weighin on this.
There are a lot of KristinHannah fans, but I think all
(12:20):
Kristin Hannah fans fall intoone camp what I mean by that is
while we all love her books,people will pick one of her
books and it's their favoriteand that's the one they stick
with all the time.
Like if you remember Twilight,you know, team Jacob, team
Edward, things like that.
Even Laguna Beach, right?
(12:41):
Like your team Kristen, or Teamlc, I feel like that's how
Kristin Hannah Books are andyour team.
The Nightingale, or your team,the women or whatever.
Because I feel like so manypeople are like, oh, the
Nightingale is my favorite.
Kristin Hannah book.
Listen People, the Nightingaleis a very good book.
I enjoyed it.
It was a lovely read.
(13:03):
The grade alone though.
Oh my gosh.
Rips your heart out.
Pieces it back together, cracksit again.
I was literally.
Falling in bed when I wasfinishing that book.
And my husband looked at me andhe's like, what is wrong with
you?
And I said, it's just this book.
He's like, it's just a book.
(13:24):
And I'm like, you don'tunderstand.
He's like, they're not realpeople.
And I'm like, but she writeslike they're, and like, I am
just a blubbering mess, becausethat book was so beautiful.
All right, let me know.
Send me a message, drop it inthe comments, what team are you
(13:45):
on when it comes to KristinHannah Books?
I'm really curious and I willmake a poll of it, we'll make a
whole episode of it at somepoint because I firmly believe
this, that people are on a teamor a camp in Kristen, Hannah
books, so other ways that Irested, relaxed, refreshed.
I caught up on some Netflixshows.
(14:07):
Got into Sullivan's Crossing.
Oh my gosh.
How did I not know about thisshow before?
I think I did hear somethingabout it when it was coming out
because it had talked about ifyou like Virgin River, if you
like Gilmore Girls, there's thisperfect show for you.
Hey, guess what?
I do love Virgin River.
I do love Gilmore Girls, andSullivan's Crossing was the
exact perfect show I needed.
(14:28):
I went through season one,season two.
I know season three is outthere, and I have watched the
first two or three episodes.
I'm trying to not rush throughit because once it's over then
it's over.
I don't know if there's gonna bea season four or not.
At least if I don't watch themall, I will still have some to
watch.
So I watched that.
(14:49):
I feel like I watched somethingelse.
There were a few other.
Little shows I watch, oh, I gotreally big onto YouTube of
watching Ryan Trehan channel.
So Ryan and his wife Hailey, whohas a book coming out next year
called Just Friends.
I think it'll be amazing.
I've already pre-ordered it, soclearly I'm all in.
(15:10):
Over the summer they did a 50.
States in 50 days fundraiser forSt.
Jude.
They had to stay in an Airbnb ina different state every day.
And ranked them to find outwhich one was the best Airbnb in
the nation.
It was so fun to see them, ittrying new things, spending time
together as a couple, seeing theAirbnbs, it just, it was so
(15:33):
wholesome.
So my son and I would watch thattogether.
And that was just a fun thing wedid too.
So overall it was amazing.
We had a family vacation at theend of the summer, which was
kind of unplanned.
It was one of those, oh my gosh,you're going back to school.
We should totally do somethingbefore you have to go back to
school.
So we went out of town at one ofour favorite places and had just
(15:54):
a little, you know, four or fivedays away, just a nice time to
reconnect as a family and.
I have one last hoorah before,like we all got back to regular
life and schedules overall it'sa fabulous, fabulous summer.
So what did I not do that I saidI was going to do?
(16:16):
Well, I'd said I was gonna do adigital detox and get better
about not being on my phone allthe time, and I have gotten
better.
I will say there are some dayswhere I'm not on it all and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I didn't evencheck my Facebook today.
And there's other days whereafter work, I'm just kind of
empty and I just find myself.
You know, getting into the doomscrolling.
(16:37):
So it is something I am stillworking on.
I have made improvements to it,but I did not unplug as much as
I thought I was going to, sowe're still working on that.
The other thing, funny enough,is I said that I was going to
get better with my books toGraham and go back to posting
reviews and trying to be moreactive over there.
(17:01):
That didn't happen either.
And it's funny because, I couldsay, oh well,'cause I'm trying
to be off social media more so Iwasn't posting as much there.
And that is kind of it, and kindof was just like, what's the
point?
I mean, honestly, it's good forme to do my book reviews there
because I find sometimes I'll goto my Good Reads and I'll see a
(17:23):
book and I'll give it like threeor four, stars.
I'm like, what was it evenabout?
What did I like about it?
And when I was doing fullreviews on my book Instagram,
then I could go back and say,oh, that's right.
That's what I liked about it, orthat's what I didn't like about
it.
That part was nice, but at thesame time I'm like, it is so
much work and I just kind oflost interest in it, not in the
(17:43):
community.
I still went to several authorevents.
I still keep up with theMissouri Book Girls Chat.
There's still people that I'mfollowing and liking their
stuff, but I feel like when I goon social media now, it's for
more of a purpose.
The purpose is watchingcorporate memes and reels and
(18:05):
sharing things with my friendsthat make us laugh.
That's kind of more what mysocial media waray is now.
Is that the right word?
Foray.
I, I don't know.
What I find myself doing now isreally going on and just sending
reels that are funny to some ofmy friends, and that's what we
(18:25):
do.
We communicate and sendingreels, there's a couple of my
friends that we do that a lot.
What's funny is like if we sendthe same one to each other or
like, oh, you sent it to me, Ithink I sent it to you a couple
weeks ago it's fun.
So really, that's kind of whatI've been using it more for now.
But again, like being morepurposeful with it, honestly, I
don't know that I'll keep mybooks Instagram going or not.
(18:48):
I mean, there's nothing wrongwith having it open, but I don't
know how active I'm going to beon it.
Honestly don't know how activeI'm gonna be on my podcast
Instagram, either.
Probably a little bit more.
I think I talked about at theend of last season too, when I
go and post something on socialmedia, I really do stop and
think, why am I posting this?
What am I posting this for?
(19:09):
Who am I posting this for?
I have been more purposeful withwhat I post and share.
So I have made some progress inthat also.
So now that we've had a fullrecap and caught you up on where
I've been and what I've beendoing for the past two plus
(19:29):
months.
Now we'll talk about what youprobably really wanna know, and
it's, so what are we doing forseason two?
I am very excited for seasontwo.
I know I didn't get into all theplanning that I wanted to, but I
still believe is going to be anamazing, amazing season.
So season one was kind ofintrospective, learning about
(19:50):
ourselves, dealing withinsecurities, challenges, things
like that.
Season two is going to build onthat with personal growth, but I
also want to focus on burnoutleadership and people following
their passions.
You may think, well, Kristen,those sound a little all over
(20:11):
the place.
They do, but they all line upthe same in my brain.
Because these are areas that I'mworking on and that I am
interested in and that I thinkare important for others.
It doesn't matter where you arein your life.
If you are a student, if you area stay at home parent, a.
(20:31):
Corporate person or a boss babe,or whatever you are.
I feel like personal growth issomething we can all work on.
Leadership is something I'mpassionate about.
I got a degree in it and, I seeso many examples of good and bad
leadership.
Leadership is everywhere.
It's in the workplace.
It's, you know, in your friendgroup.
(20:53):
It's.
With the sports teams, it's inyour community.
There's so much leadershipeverywhere, and I think that
being a good leader in whateverenvironment you're in is
something we can all work onpeople following their passions.
Is something I am passionateabout and part of it is because
I am, what you would call riskadverse.
(21:15):
And I prefer stability,security, and I'm not one to
take big risks, but throughoutthe past year I have encountered
people who have just left theirjob to try something completely
different.
People who have found somethingthey're passionate about and
really go on to do great thingswith that.
(21:36):
I want to share those storiesand offer people.
Insights and the courage tofollow their passions.
I don't know exactly where we'regonna go with that, but that's
something I really do want tolook into.
I love talking with peoplehaving guests on and having
people share their stories.
So if you are one of thosepeople that has followed your
(21:58):
passion or has a leadershipstory or has thoughts on
personal growth, I would love tohave you on.
You can always reach out to meon email.
You can go to the website,Instagram, Facebook page, and
you can just go to my Calendlypick a time and we'll talk about
things and it'll be amazing.
(22:20):
I know Alexis does, and I thinkKelly would probably be up for
it, is doing another book clubtoo.
So we'll be looking at somethingthere.
I have a couple of books inmind, but honestly I don't know
that I can get Alexis and Kellyto agree to them because they're
nonfiction books.
(22:41):
Since we're talking aboutpersonal growth and development,
I wanted to have something kindof on that brand.
We will see where we go fromthere, the plan right now is to
kind of do topic months, sowe'll focus on things each
month, but honestly, dependingon how scheduling works out and
who's available when it may, itmay sway a little from this
(23:04):
schedule.
But we'll be looking at some,personal evolution kind of ways
we've changed, looking at that.
Progress we've made from lastseason.
We'll be talking aboutleadership and identity.
We'll talk about ambition,burnout, and boundaries.
And then we'll talk about timegrowth and looking ahead.
(23:25):
And that's again, us throughDecember where I anticipate we
will take another brief pause.
I promise it'll be brief thattime.
I promise.
Because it'll be winter and whatelse will I have to do, but lock
myself in my studio where it'swarm and just talk.
Right?
So that's the plan.
We are finally kicking it off inSeptember.
(23:46):
Yay.
The plan is to go Septemberthrough, probably early to
mid-December and do a littleholiday break and then, come
back again.
In, January, February time.
So that's kind of what I amlooking at.
So I am back.
We are back together.
It is so good to be talking withyou again, I am so excited for
(24:10):
season two and thankful forthose of you who have waited.
For me to come back.
Also excited for new listenerswho are going to join in.
I encourage you to go back andlisten to season one, whether
you are a new or seasoned,listener, because there was a
lot of good stuff back there.
We did touch on burnout andboundaries a little bit in
(24:32):
season one, so probably be goodto go back and listen to those
episodes.
Before we, barge into them all.
In season two, there were alsosome good book episodes.
There were some insecurityepisodes.
There was a lot of good, we hada lot of good guests.
Learning about friendship andfriendship stories.
Paige and Amber's story was abig one.
Taylor's story Recovery is agood one.
(24:54):
Like there were a lot of goodepisodes in season one.
And I promise you, there's gonnabe even more good, more, better,
more amazing episodes coming inseason two.
So stay tuned.
I'm excited about all of it.
All right, talk to you later.
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