Your New Life Blend

Acupuncture is one of those things you've been meaning to try. Then you think about the needles, or the cost, or having to find someone good, and it slides back down the list. Michelle Larivee built a company for exactly that person, because she was one. Thirteen years into a finance career spanning Merrill Lynch, the World Bank, and Deloitte, a ski accident put her through the entire Western...

Most people build the business and then try to fit a life around it. Danielle Becker went the other way, as she says: "I built a business around myself as a human being." Danielle spent ten years as a graphic designer in New York fashion — Aéropostale, Hanes, Champion, art director at Macy's & Bloomingdale's — painting nights and weekends the whole time. Friends started ask...

Some people find their lane and stay in it. But if you're the other kind—the one who keeps turning the page, trusting what you see before anyone else does—you know both the thrill of it and the fear that rides along. Lorine Pendleton has turned the page many times: from music and years as an entertainment lawyer for Prince and Stevie Wonder, to tech, to venture investor. That last turn came f...

If you're the one who drives, the one who makes it happen, and who's maybe a little uncomfortable letting anyone else take the wheel, then you probably also know the quiet cost of it. That ever-present what-else-what-else, and the bar you keep raising on yourself. Cate Luzio has channeled that drive further than almost anyone. Two decades running multibillion-dollar businesses at HSBC an...

Often, leading feels like drinking from a firehose, so it makes sense if you find yourself wondering if you're the problem, or the only one going under. You're not. And Caroline Webb has spent three decades showing leaders why. One of the world's most decorated coaches, an economist and former McKinsey partner, Caroline's driven by something disarmingly simple: she wants to be...

Well, hello! Miss me? I've missed this, and I've missed you. Press play and I'll tell you what's changed, and why.  The short version: each week I sit down with a founder, a leader, a thinker I want to learn from, and get past the version they've told a hundred times to what matters most to them, and to what their story, or their work, can offer you. Starting September 8,...

Have you ever looked at someone who seems to have it all — the job, the glam, the life — and wondered, what the heck did I miss? That's the premise of the much-anticipated new novel " The Memo " by Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling, about a woman flailing in life and love, stuck in a rut while all her friends seem to flourish — and realizing it's because they got "The Memo,...

Jenn Romolini is a success story, with the glowing "get her life!" press coverage to prove it. As a journalist, editor, author, podcast creator and creative executive, Jenn has had the kind of successful career across media, tech and entertainment that is a testament to ambition, vision and hard work. But in her new memoir “ Ambition Monster ,” Jenn shares the story of just how hard the...

Christie Marchese is the founder and CEO of Kinema, a next-gen platform for filmmakers to share their work (and get paid for it!), to find new audiences and experiencing the magic of going to the movies as intended - in community. That's magic that Christie knows well, as a serial entrepreneur who has built a career around surfacing important work and bringing new audiences together to drive...

For the past two and half seasons, we have been lucky to have some truly amazing guests here on "Your New Life Blend," who have shared so many amazing insights. As we hit that Q2 crunch time, we wanted to share some of it to help you refocus on your own priorities, goals, and boundaries (we love boundaries). Please enjoy this great advice and insight from Dorie Clark, Bridget Todd, Vanes...

Sure, we all get tired. But Lindsay Scola's tired was different. She was constantly exhausted, dozed off frequently, experienced night terrors, anxiety and brain fog, and sometimes, hallucinations. Doctors suggested that perhaps it was her demanding career working with high-powered leaders in entertainment, politics and government (including being part of the Obama administration), but still,...

Glynnis MacNicol spent the long stretch of COVID lockdown mostly alone in small Upper West Side apartment, mostly without really touching another person. So by summer 2021, after vaccines had rolled out and restrictions were finally lifting, she jumped at the chance to stay at a friend's apartment in Paris, and immediately bought a plane ticket out of her pandemic-imposed solitude. Landing in...

Who are we when we don’t have a job? A fancy title? The heft of a prestigious organization behind us, signaling our worth and marketability? That question stared Penny Abeywardena square in the face when she left her high-powered position as New York City Commissioner for International Affairs in the De Blasio administration, a role she had served in from 2014-2022. It was the first untethered, un...

Jo Piazza has built a career around telling stories, specifically about women living lives of adventure, bravery, joy and fulfillment. In celebration of Jo's upcoming novel " The Sicilian Inheritance " - out next week! - we are sharing our wonderful conversation with her from Season 2, where she talks about the personal journey behind the book (based on the murder of her Sicilian gr...

Jessica Bennett has spent a prolific, award-winning career writing and reporting about gender, sexuality, politics, and culture, including as the first-ever Gender Editor for The New York Times, and now as a contributing writer & editor. She has profiled - and shaped our collective understanding of - numerous public figures including Jennifer Aniston, Pamela Anderson, Monica Lewinsky, E. Jean...

In honor of Women’s History Month, we wanted to bring back one of our *favorite* episodes from Season 1, with the inimitable Cindy Gallop, who lives her life *exactly* as she wants and is *very good* at inspiring the rest of us to do the same. Cindy would like you to have *more* of everything you want - more money, more power, more freedom, more innovation, more connection, more joy - and yes, mor...

What happens when you're building the life you want, and then life knocks you sideways? The layoff. The rejection. The congratulations-on-your-new-baby-we’ll-just-give-that-account-to-someone-else. That last one happened to Amy Shoenthal, whose upward trajectory in a marketing firm record-scratched when she announced her pregnancy and came back from maternity leave to find herself subtly but...

Welcome to Season 3 of "Your New Life Blend," a podcast about building the lives we want, powerfully and with intention. Join executive coach and licensed clinical therapist Shoshanna Hecht for another round of conversations with dynamic, inspiring women who are living the process of building - and rebuilding - their best and most meaningful lives. This podcast is about crystallizing wha...

Suzanne Lerner built a business with her husband, Michael Cohen, and that business was Michael Stars, the ubiquitous and long-standing fashion brand that there's a very good chance has, at one point, made your favorite t-shirt or tank top or sweater or dress or otherwise clutch wardrobe staple. Suzanne and Michael built the Michael Stars brand in alignment with their values, prioritizing loca...

Lori Leibovich is the editor of the Well section at the New York Times and under her leadership, it has become a juggernaut of essential, chart-topping content about the ways in which we are all trying to live better, healthier, and happier (and the many ways in which we are being challenged in trying to do so). Meanwhile, Lori has been  living all the confusion of the past three years along with...

How can I do my best? How can I do my best for others? How can I face the world with compassion? These are the questions Malynda Hale is asking herself as she begins this new year. Hale is an entertainer, a creator, an entrepreneur and an activist, and has come off a busy, busy year determined to follow her own North Star of empathy in a noisy, noisy world. In this episode of "Your New Life B...

S. Mitra Kalita is the CEO & Founder of URL Media, a network of high-performing Black and Brown news media organizations that serve, support and center communities of color, and she has plans for 2024. Fresh off a $500 thousand grant from the MacArthur Foundation, Mitra has a mandate to expand URL Media's essential editorial work and reach — because 2024 is an election year, and Black and...

The holiday season can be joyful for some and complicated for others, particularly those of us who are mourning loved ones whom we have lost. Rebecca Soffer knows this well, having lost both her parents within just a few years of each other in her early 30s. In a career twist that she never planned for and certainly never would have wanted, Rebecca went on to co-found Modern Loss, a community and...

We lost our friend Benish Shah last week. Benish was smart, righteous, funny, thoughtful, passionate, loving and brave. She was one of the first people we spoke to when we were launching the podcast and we knew we wanted her voice on the show. Her episode was one of our favorites and we refer to it often. We are sharing it again today in Benish's honor, because her voice felt so necessary at...

Binta Brown is a woman of letters. Two of those letters are "J.D." and they have undergirded her career, first at top Wall Street firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore and then as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis advising global entertainment and media companies, as well as in her leadership roles at iconic American institutions like the American Theatre Wing, Barnard College, Columbia Univers...