In the nation's biggest Covid pivot, Roe V. Wade was overturned on June 24th and I knew that I wanted to address it as the last episode of season 4. Kia Guarino, Executive Director of Pro-Choice Washington, the only agency in WA State whose sole focus is on "political and legislative adovcacy for reproductive freedom in WA State," sits down with me to discuss how this happened and what we can do to move forward.

The reversal of Roe V. Wade is done and there is currently a federal abortion ban on the table, so policy is one of the only tools we have to keep abortion accessible to all people. But I'm not sure many of us understand what to do or how to apply ourselves to policy change and that's where Ms. Guarino comes in.

My hope for this episode is that you leave with a sense of what the truth is, and get some tools to help normalize the word abortion and the conversations that surround it.

Cassie Walker Johnson is my friend. She is a successful real estate agent with her husband Jeremy. She is a mom, she is an incredible networker and connecter, and in December of 2020, she became a cancer patient. Right before Christmas, Cassie got the phone call 1 in 7 women will get, the call from the doctor telling her that she had breast cancer. Now there’s a covid pivot.

Over the next hour, Cassie is going to share her experience so please know we talk about breast cancer, surgery, and chemo. We also talk about helping our sisters in arms that get diagnosed, and how we can best serve each other. Cassie’s mom asked me if it was going to be a “silver linings” podcast and I assure you it is. This conversation is meant to serve as a tool - Cassie wants her experience to help others who get this diagnosis, and remind us that there are silver linings within the cancer diagnosis.

Today we’re talking about a covid pivot that I’ve seen a bit lately - divorce.

Strange that being locked in a house with your partner would make you question your life’s choices…

Because I’m hearing anecdotal evidence about more people splitting this year than I’ve heard in the past, I decided to do some research into whether or not what I was hearing on the street was actually true. Turns out, it might be.

Rather than turning to a divorce attorney for an interview, I thought it might be more illuminating to hear from a marriage counselor - maybe we can come through this next 50 minutes with some advice and hope rather than doom for our relationships. Enter Zach Brittle.

Zach is a Gottman certified marriage therapist - you’ll learn what that means in the episode- he’s also a best selling author, and also a podcaster. His show Marriage Therapy Radio provides weekly insights into the daily struggles of marriage, and offers a look into the science behind great relationships. Zach agreed to lend his expertise on why couples might have had more conflict over the last two year and identifies ways we might re-evaluate our current relationships to set a new course for the future.

For anyone in a partnership, this episode isn’t a downer - it’s meant to give us all some new tools and perspective as we all reset post-covid. Let’s face it - most relationships could always benefit from some new tools in the toolbox.

As you know this season is focused on Covid pivots - people who despite the worst circumstances have dug down, found some resilience and done incredible things. My next guest embodies the pivot. I’d like to introduce Erin Quick. Erin is a professional - she’s a 3 time startup founder, 20 year marketing and branding professional and mom of two kids. Erin and I have lots in common as it turns out - we’re both the exact same age, we’re from Spokane, both started our careers in very similar ways…but where we differ is in our paths to motherhood.

I reference this in the episode, but I’m from the Teen Mom on MTV generation. Because I have virtually no experience with adoption personally, what I thought I knew is mostly stereotype. When Erin’s fertility path led to adoption, she, as a marketer and brander, began asking questions about the process and wondering why it had to be the way it was - expensive, discriminatory, and long. After deviating from the norm and adopting two kids with her own team, her circle started reaching out to her for help. That circle grew and before she knew it, she realized her calling was to modernize adoption, and figure out how to allow all families to grow without an agency if they so desired. All in Spring of 2020. While she was homeschooling her kindergartner.

Her company PairTree is going to change the face of adoption as we know it. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Dr. Rave reached out to me a couple of months ago after hearing my interview with Assistant Atty General Kyle Wood. She was prepping for a meeting with him and decided to email me. She explained that as a practicing pediatrician, her feeling was that if we can get policy right for kids and health, everything else would follow. She felt her talents would be best used for the next few years in Olympia as a State House Representative in the district I happen to live in. Now, up until I started this podcast, local politics hasn’t been my jam. I’m embarassed to admit it, but I wasn’t invested. What I definitely am invested in, however, is women running for office. I had the opportunity to interview Representative Liz Berry a week before she won her State Rep office in district 36, and after speaking with her, I realized that I wanted to be involved with getting more women in leadership.

Dr. Rave is a very different candidate than Liz Berry. Dr. Rave is thoughtful, pragmatic, quietly confident, and her background in flight medicine trained her to be very calm under pressure - all very good qualities in a lawmaker. As I’ve stated many times before, I am not a political journalist. I am not out to gotcha interview anyone who is brave enough to dip their toe into local politics. I’d like to reiterate that this is not an endorsement interview for Dr. Rave - I’m interested in her decision to leave a successful medical practice to enter into Washington politics. She clearly cares deeply about our community and I wanted to get to know her and hear her story.

Parents - don't back away.  This episode is important.  How many of us pivoted towards giving our kids screens during Covid, and now it's become a bit of a problem?  I know I'm experiencing this in my house.  Emily Cherkin, The Screentime Consultant is here to help us unwind this habit, become tech-intentional, and move forward as a stronger family. 

You can find Emily at her website, on her IG, and on her YouTube Channel

Thank you to sponsors Johnson and Walker Real Estate and Element Mortgage

Founder and Owner of The Pilates Hub, Nathalia Gorosh sits down to discuss how her business came to be. It’s a conversation about partnership, trust, and learning to listen to your own instincts. She shares her story and includes tips on how to be a smarter business owner, and why knowing and trusting your own vision is the key to success.

Founder of Contour + Ink, Erin Skipley talks about keeping her dream studio alive over the last 2 years and manifesting your own destiny by getting out of your comfort zone.

Dr. Ashwin Rao on the evolution of modern Sports Medicine and how he’s training a new generation of doctors differently.

Kristi Lord and Lindsay Droz, co-founders of L'Avant Collective sit down with me to discuss their posh plant-based cleaning product company, share their philosophy and mindset, and reveal their secret to keeping resiliance through Covid.

RIFOMF listeners get a 20% discount code - 1st ever!! Go to www.lavantcollective.com

use code RIF20 to score yourself some of Gwynneth Paltrow's favorite cleaning supplies.

Season 4 will continue to inspire as we discuss career pivots and success during pandemic. Keep asking questions - you never what's happening right in front of your face.

In this episode we talk about what the real definition of burnout is, I reveal a bit about my own struggle, and we talk about how to get through it. If you take nothing else from this hour, know that if you are having these feelings, you are absolutely not alone.

Ryan Oftebro and I recorded this episode a little over a month ago - I’d wanted to interview Ryan over a year ago about this topic because Ryan is Principal and CEO of Kelly-Ross Pharmacy group here in Seattle. Kelly-Ross remains one of the few independently owned pharmacies in our area and Ryan, as the incoming president of the WA State Pharmacy association, has some unique visibility into the number of opioid prescription and overdose in our state. I knew generally that Ryan had lobbied in Olympia to fight Opioid addiction, and that he was somewhat of an expert, so he became my guru in my quest for education.

In this episode, I’m going to cover a topic that I find extremely uncomfortable, especially as a mother of a young daughter. This week’s subject is human trafficking. This topic is so layered, with so many different faces, and I wanted to tackle it because as parents and just as humans, we cannot continue looking the other way when we drive down the street and see this happening. We have to educate ourselves and our kids and we have to do it now. We have to shine some light on what’s happening in broad daylight right in front of us.