Shameless Reinvention

50 Fridays. 50 Episodes. Zero Regrets. 50 Fridays ago, we sat down at this table with a microphone, a vision, and no idea where this journey would take us. Today, we are shouting it from the rooftops—welcome to Episode 50 of Shameless Reinvention! Join hosts Sonya Seymour and Sharon LaSure-Roy in What 50 Episodes Taught Us About Reinvention as they look back on six foundational moments from the fi...

In our "Dear Black Women" episode, we answered every unsolicited letter and lecture with a clear message: be confident and keep it moving. This week, we're asking the question we never got to. What does it cost to stay confident, composed, and ready every single time, for years? Sharon and Sonya welcome back licensed therapist and longtime friend of the show Dr. Thommi Odom for an honest, funny, a...

If your phone stopped ringing today and no one needed anything from you, would you feel free or would you feel erased? Sharon and Sonya sit with that question this week, no guest, just the two of them, on what happens when being needed quietly becomes your whole identity. What happens when the identity built on being needed goes quiet The real difference between being valuable and being needed One...

What happens when “Dear Black women” becomes the opening line to yet another unsolicited lecture? In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon LaSure-Roy and Sonya Seymour invite Jeri Tidwell and returning guest Nannette Sandy to the table for an honest, spirited conversation about the open letters, viral posts, stereotypes and backhanded advice constantly directed at Black women. Together, th...

Are you constantly putting out fires in your life, or are you actively preventing them? In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon and Sonya dive deep into what happens when "keeping the peace" starts costing you your own peace. From the "Black Auntie Playlist of Life Seasons" to the subtle trap of silent compliance, we’re unpacking how unaddressed conversations fuel major life burnouts. Key...

Before the world saw twenty three seconds of a press conference in January 2026, Lynn Jones Turpin had already given thirty years to community journalism in Jacksonville. In this episode, we sit down with the associate editor of the Jacksonville Free Press, a woman who has interviewed Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, and countless mayors and entertainers, but who says her proudest stories are the ones n...

The August Limbo: Why You Don't Need a "Back-to-School" Reset It's mid-August, and suddenly every commercial, every inbox, every "Fall Strategy" meeting is screaming at you to get your life together for September. But who actually asked you to feel this way? In this episode, Sharon LaSure-Roy and Sonya Seymour name what they're calling "The August Limbo," that strange bridge between summer ease an...

Have you noticed the 2016 nostalgia taking over your feed? From chokers and the Mannequin Challenge to the cultural reset of Lemonade, Insecure, and Luke Cage, 2016 felt different. But this week on Shameless Reinvention, Sharon and Sonya are looking beyond the trends. We’re holding up who we were 10 years ago against who we are today in 2026. Why does nostalgia hit so deeply right now? Because bac...

Ever wondered who's steering the ship when you're under pressure? This episode of 'Shameless Reinvention' dives deep into the idea of alter egos and how they guide us through life's toughest moments. Join Sonya and Sharon as they share personal stories and insights on embracing your inner strengths and naming that powerful part of you. Discover how these inner personas can help you transform chall...

 We’ve officially hit the midpoint of 2026, and in this special, intimate episode, it’s just the two of us! No guests, no scripts—just two close friends pulling up a chair to have an honest, kitchen-table conversation about what the last seven months have actually looked like behind the scenes. Reinvention is rarely a straight line. Sometimes it looks like stepping into an exciting new professiona...

Success According to Who? The checklist was never actually about your life. It was about a picture someone else framed. In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon and Sonya go after a question most of us never stop to ask: who actually handed us our definition of success, and does it still fit? They trace it back to the source, parents and what got praised or punished in the household, churc...

She Wasn't Being Strong. She Was Getting Home. Composure is not consent. It's survival. On the Fourth of July, a photograph taken by Reuters photographer Cheney Orr stopped the country in its tracks. A Black woman sitting quietly on a Washington metro train, surrounded by nearly a dozen masked members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front. Within hours it was being called the defining image...

What does it actually cost you to be the one who always figures it out? In this deeply personal episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon and Sonya tear down the mask of the "Strong Black Woman" archetype. From childhood nicknames like "Sonya the Faithful" to inheriting the family "fixer" role, they explore how resilience can accidentally become an excuse for the world to stop checking on you. Turn...

Last week the Obama Presidential Center opened in Chicago, and if you were anywhere near social media you felt it. Michelle Obama told a room, and a nation, that hope is not a feeling. It is a choice. And Barack stood up in front of the world and refused to sugarcoat the moment, calling people toward honesty, community, and the hard work of becoming something better. That is the America 250 conver...

What happens when your medical career path takes you through a crowded ER, a temporary practice out of a church lobby, and straight into a healthcare revolution? You do not wait for an invitation. You rewrite the entire game. In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sonya and Sharon sit down with the brilliant, powerhouse board-certified dermatologist, researcher, and author, Dr. Chesahna Kindred...

In Episode 4 of The Roads We Walk miniseries, Sharon LaSure-Roy and Sonya Seymour welcome four extraordinary young women — Ava, Alayna, Bella, and Mae — who traveled to the Equal Justice Initiative legacy sites in Montgomery, Alabama, and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma alongside community leader Ms. Velma Monteiro-Tribble. These young women came home and wrote reflections that moved us t...

They are not waiting. They are not asking permission. They are already doing it big. In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon LaSure-Roy and Sonya Seymour sit down with Chase, Ella, and Nyana, three young women who traveled to the Equal Justice Initiative legacy sites in Montgomery, Alabama and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma as part of an extraordinary intergenerational journey led by t...

What does it mean to walk the work forward? In this episode of Shameless Reinvention, Sharon and Sonya sit down with the remarkable Ms. Velma Monteiro-Tribble, a global philanthropist, connector, and bridge builder who has spent decades quietly changing the world, from funding women entrepreneurs in post-genocide Rwanda to organizing a 66-person cultural exchange to the Equal Justice Initiative Le...

What does it look like when a woman refuses to let any single chapter be the whole story? It looks like Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole. Anthropologist. Trailblazer. The first African American woman to serve as president of both Spelman College and Bennett College. Former Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art. Northwestern University alumna. Champion for equity, education, and human d...

Beyoncé showed up to the Met Gala in a skeleton. Megan Thee Stallion kept the curtain up while the internet had opinions. And somehow Bananito — an AI animated banana with abs and zero loyalty — is doing more emotional processing work for Black women than half the content online. This week Sharon and Sonya are back with no guests, no filter, and absolutely no chill. They break down what Beyoncé's...

What if the person standing between you and everything you're building is an earlier, wounded version of yourself? Sharon's 25-year friend and World Trade Center Arkansas CEO Denise Thomas joins the show to talk about the emotional intelligence work that no credential can replace. They get into the inner child framework, the gift of hawk vision, integrating your shadows instead of hiding them, and...

The Long Game: Nobody Talks About This Part | Shameless Reinvention Have you ever looked around at where you are and quietly thought: this is not what I planned? This episode is for you. Sharon LaSure-Roy and Sonya Seymour get real about what the long game actually feels like from the inside — not the bumper sticker version, but the daily reality of doing the work when you do not know if the work...

You have the plan. You have the research. You have the spreadsheet. So why are you still waiting? In Episode 30, we sit down with Victoria Hairston, a woman who walked through divorce, physical transformation, and a full identity reclamation, and came out the other side not just standing but moving. Literally. She is headed to Panama, and she is not waiting until everything is perfect to get there...

This week on Shameless Reinvention, we're talking about faith, freedom, and what it actually means to hold on — through the lens of Passover, Easter, a beloved Game of Thrones character, and a sermon about weight you were never meant to carry. This one is for everybody who has been holding something they don't fully understand yet. Episode 29: Hold the Door. Listen now.

Dr. Tamara Huff is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, founder of Vigeo Orthopedics, real estate entrepreneur, Duke MBA, and incoming chair of the Health Care Systems Committee for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. She started Vigeo in 2019 to increase access to musculoskeletal care in rural America — because the communities that needed it most weren't being served. In Episode 28, sh...