Above Average

Celebrity makeup artist Niki Metz has built a career in beauty that has taken her from working with names like Tori Spelling and Diane von Furstenberg to Paris and New York Fashion Week—but her story goes far beyond what happens in the makeup chair.

In this episode of Above Average, Niki sits down with Lorissa to talk about her decades in the beauty industry, the lessons she's learned working at the highest levels of fashion a...

Shayne Lamas has spent nearly her entire life in the spotlight. The daughter of Hollywood icon Lorenzo Lamas, she grew up surrounded by fame, went on to win The Bachelor, starred in reality television, and lived a life that—from the outside—looked quintessentially Hollywood.

But there is so much more to Shayne’s story.

In this episode of Above Average, Shayne opens up about what it was really like growing up in a fa...

In this episode of Above Average, Lorissa sits down with forensic psychologist Dr. Leslie Dobson for an eye-opening conversation about criminal behavior, manipulation, online predators, social media, and what parents need to understand about the digital world their children are growing up in.

Dr. Leslie brings her experience working within the criminal justice system to break down how predators think, how seemingly innocent online b...

What if your wardrobe was one of the most overlooked tools for improving your confidence, regulating your nervous system, and helping you achieve your goals?

In this episode, Lorissa sits down with Chellie Carlson, stylist and image consultant, to discuss the powerful connection between personal style and personal growth. Together, they explore how dressing with intention can change the way you feel, how others perceive you, and ult...

Description Plastic surgery is one of those topics everyone has an opinion about—but very few people are having honest conversations about it.

In this episode of Above Average, I sit down with Dr. Juan Rendon, an Ivy League-trained, board-certified plastic surgeon and one of the few surgeons in the country to hold both an MD and PhD. Together, we dive into Botox, fillers, facelifts, mommy makeovers, scars, recovery, and how to...

If you've ever called yourself the unorganized one, the scattered one, the Type B one.. you're going to relate to this episode!

Madison Fisher came on the pod calling herself Type B. By the rapid-fire at the end, we've learned she's a closet Type A trying to hit a bar she has no systems to reach.

What We Cover

→ Why "Type B" is often the label a Type A woman puts on when she doesn't have systems

→ The Zeigarnik Effect, explained with t...

Lorissa spent months trying to optimize every minute, and right before her birthday her body just quit. For the first time in her life she could not power through, and it cracked something open.

This is the monthly catch-up. Two kid birthdays, an anniversary, turning 35, and a real reckoning with where your worth actually comes from, plus a back-to-back run of going viral that turned into a test of handling hate online.

What We Cover

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You've spent years building something people trust with their face. Then somewhere in the middle of running the business, the brand, and the household, the version of you that started it all can get buried under everything you're holding.

Nicole Smith is the injector behind @lipsandlattes and the founder of HēBē Skin Health in Claremont and Laguna Beach, and a mom of three. A routine antibiotic once swelled her brain and took her ab...

Somewhere along the way, "this is hard" became the highest compliment we paid motherhood.

Lorissa and Alex get into why hard-versus-easy is the wrong filter entirely, what they would put in its place, and why calling motherhood the hardest job in the world might be doing moms more harm than good.

What We Cover

→ The filter Alex uses instead of hard-versus-easy, and why it changes how you see almost every decision

→ Why Lorissa won't ca...

You used to be the person who would book the flight without thinking twice. Then you had kids, and the part of you that loved to go somewhere got packed away with everything else, and you started to wonder if it was gone for good.

Amanda Kellner Klein decided it wasn't. She's a brand partnerships exec, she writes about traveling after kids on her Substack, and her almost-four-year-old already has more than 50 flights to her name. Sh...

Lorissa woke up one morning and finally felt ready to let go of the kids a little. After touring 25 schools and finding every one of them terrible, she realized the schools were never the problem. The timing was.

A hosts-only catch-up on the pull between loving your work and loving being home, and how you actually know when it's time to let go.

What We Cover

→ The real reason Lorissa said no to 25 schools (and what finally changed)

→ W...

Allison Brewer opened her med spa with a one and three year old at home, no door on her treatment room, and no front desk because she wasn't sure anyone would show up. Two weeks in, so many patients were walking through the door that she had to hire a front desk.

She's the founder of Masters MedSpa in Irvine and a second generation injector who travels the world to stay at the top of her field. She came on to talk about what it actu...

You picked a major at eighteen, and somehow that one decision still gets to decide what you are allowed to do with the rest of your life.

In this catch-up, Lorissa and Alex get into leaving corporate, translating those skills into something of your own, and why the systems that actually stick are the ones built around how your brain works instead of someone else's.

What We Cover

→ Why the major you picked at eighteen is not the lane y...

By the time you fall into bed at the end of the day, your body has nothing left. Not for affection, not for intimacy, not for the part of your relationship that used to be effortless. Nobody told you this was the trade.

Cindy Scharkey has been an OB/GYN nurse for almost 40 years, and what she kept hearing from women is that nobody is having this conversation. So she started having it.

What You'll Learn

→ The "one tank of energy" reali...

Sometimes you're in the rhythm and everything feels good. Sometimes the rhythm breaks and you have to rebuild your week from the ground up. In this catch-up, one of us is in each season.

Alex and Lorissa catch up on where they each actually are right now.. one of them in the most grounded season she's had in a while, one of them hitting a wall and re-working how she runs her week. The conversation wanders into the Emma Grede "three-...

You keep trying new supplements, new workouts, new morning routines, and something still feels off. The thing nobody is checking is usually the thing running underneath all of it.

Dr. Sam Riley is back for round two. This time we go deep on blood sugar.. why it sits at the root of hair loss, insomnia, weight that won't budge, hormone issues, fertility struggles, and the anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere.

What You'll Learn

→ Th...

Eight months of broken sleep and a head full of shoulds.

This is the mini where Alex talks about sleep-training Scarlett, and the hardest part of it actually being just undoing everything she'd told herself about what she was supposed to do. Lorissa, who's immune to the shoulds, has great advice on how to ignore the conflicting noise.

What We Cover

→ Why "what's best for the baby" isn't what you think

→ How anti-sleep-training messagin...

You've tried the charts, the timers, the consequences, the gentle approach, and your kid is still melting down every morning before anyone's out the door. What Randy Free teaches is the middle ground many parents are actually looking for, somewhere between gentle parenting and old-school discipline, and it works for all kids (even neurodivergent ones).

Randy Free is a family counselor and retired international tax partner who spent ...

Nobody warns you that getting dressed postpartum is going to make you cry before church.

Lorissa and Alex talk about body changes after kids, the identity shift that comes with them, and what actually helps.

What We Cover

→ The postpartum closet meltdown nobody warns you about and why it costs you more than time

→ How Lorissa went from always being "the smallest" to gaining 80 lbs and completely rebuilding her relationship with her bod...