Badassery Life

Carol knows how to throw a badass party! And her parties raise millions for Indianapolis nonprofit organizations. In this episode, we talked about her career - including working at Motorola executing their sponsorships of Vans Warped Tour, X Games and their motorsports sponsorship of Michael Andretti. In 2018, she directed the Universal Studios UK Movie Premiere “Born Racer” held at Indianapolis S...

This badass woman has been traveling the world on a motorcycle with her husband and their 75-pound German Shepherd, Moxie. Unfortunately, since the time that we interviewed her, tragedy has struck. Her husband was in a terrible accident (he survived) and their beloved dog died following complications resulting from an ordinary knee surgery. As you can imagine, Jess is gutted and heartbroken. After...

Fletcher has fully transitioned from female to gender nonconforming and talks about that journey in this episode. Although they are still learning about who they are, therapy and the undying love of their chosen family has helped them find their purpose and grow into the person they are today. It wasn't easy. Fletcher grew up stifled in a very religious family and never felt safe at home to ta...

These two badass women are bound by wine, a sense of adventure, a strong community, and their interest in helping women get out and enjoy the outdoors! They're event planners who both love the outdoors and being active. They started a new company during COVID when they found a gap in the market for a service they new they could provide. Staying true to themselves and committed to growing Trail &am...

After learning to manage her disease of alcoholism, Stephanie is living a life where she can show others that there is life after addiction. She hit rock bottom. She was trapped in a loveless marriage that ended in divorce. As her drinking escalated, her health declined. She lost her business and nearly lost her life. Her nights (and days) of drinking took a serious toll on her body, showing up in...

She's an established Patient Voice Advocate with 20 years+ biotechnology experience (a woman with a badass career) ... a wife, mom of two adult kids, foster mom to more than 80 children in emergency situations, and an advocate for important causes. Last year she testified before both the House and Senate opposing Senate Bill 2 (in her words: "a half-assed attempt to placate the public after stripp...

She’s originally from Tennessee, loves country music and cowboy boots, a foodie who loves barbeque and southern cookin’. She's a former Emmy-nominated TV News personality whose career landed her in Florida, where she fell in love with the water and her husband. Meet Emily Crews (those of us in Indianapolis remember her as Emily Kinzer). After dedicating the last decade to featuring impactful...

This badass woman has overcome so much - so much that we had to double/triple check our facts before we started the interview. She shared with us that she has overcome divorce, a blended family with 5 children, including an oppositional defiant child, a child with autism, a child with a severe congenital heart defect who endured 4 open heart and 13 other surgeries, court battles, having a restrain...

Regina is a badass culinary trailblazer. She’s a five-time James Beard Foundation Award Semifinalist and a true pioneer in the farm-to-table movement in the Midwest. She's a world-cuisine connoisseur and a culinary gem in Indianapolis. She's the former owner of R Bistro and R2GO. Indianapolis was heartbroken when she shut down her restaurants, but she's still living in the city and we caught up wi...

Sarah is a girl from Indy's eastside who decided 20 years into the restaurant industry that it was time to fully go after her dreams. In the midst of COVID, she took on her photography career full-time and started putting energy into her non-profit Re-Generation Indy. In this episode, she talks about the sexual abuse she endured as a child and how she overcame that and started to heal by opening u...

Polina Osherov is Co-Founder and Executive Director of PATTERN. She is also a commercial photographer. She credits her success to persistence, hard work, and knowing how to pick her battles. She describes herself as direct, driven, and solution-oriented. We describe her as a creative badass! From the Soviet Union to Australia - a life that led her to Indianapolis. A dad who was a cinematographer a...

Jennifer describes herself as gritty, loving and humorous. Friends say she's tenacious, loving, passionate. We think Jennifer Cvar is a badass! She's the founder and executive director of Momentum Indy | Indy Crit, thriving and serving as the only female founder/manager in the American Cup Series, which she also helped to found.  She grew up riding her bike as a kid and loving the independenc...

Janet is the longest-serving arts leaders in Indianapolis. She has created art with amazing professionals from around the country for nearly 40 years. While she describes herself as tenacious, loud and forward-moving, she believes others would say she’s demonstrative, energetic and mouthy. The word we use is BADASS!  Janet joined the Indiana Repertory Theatre in 1980 as a dramaturg (which she...

This badass woman founded The Can Lady Project, an Indianapolis nonprofit, which has collected more than 20 million cans, raised thousands of dollars for teachers, and works to educate local youth. In 2007, she was inspired to help her community by doing something simple: recycling. Think you can't make a difference? You CAN - just ask the Can Lady. She basically started a recycling...

In 2017, Deb completed a 50 by 60 challenge with her husband – where they ran a marathon in all 50 states before they turned 60 (they’ve actually completed over 60 marathons AND a 100 mile race). In 2018, they crossed off their bucket list a bike ride across the country (literally from coast to coast). And as if that isn’t enough, a month after they finished their coast-to-coast ride, they started...

In this episode we talked with Cara about her career, her fight for women and women's sexual health, and her persepctive on Roe v Wade and abortion. Listen to this episode and learn why she's passionate about vulva vaginal disease and about her purpose of bringing light to dark places. Cara talks about things people don't like to talk about and finds a way to normalize them. She's using her voice...

Lindsey is a wife, mother of two, volunteer, co-founder of an annual memory run/walk in memory of her mom, and an active member of her church. She's also on a journey being a parent of a transgender daughter. She's learning how to support her child who is gender diverse, doesn't fit the norms and struggles with anxiety, ADHD and depression. Lindsey is supporting her child with beauty, grace and in...

Suzi is considered to be one of the women at the beginning of the #metoo movement. She was a key witness on a harassment trial against a popular celebrity in her home country of Australia. In 2014, she found herself in a London Court room, getting her inner warrior on in support of all women who have been victimized, by sharing her story to the world as a bad character witness in the child sexual...

Shelly is a mother, wife, musician, lesbian, Christian, hippie, helper, leader, and listener. She’s also the new (and first female) Executive Director of Indy Pride – an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that produces events that educate, honor our history, and celebrate the diversity of the Indianapolis Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer community. In this episode we talked with Shelly abo...

For the past two decades, Susan Baughman has played a major role in Indy's biggest sporting events. Most recently, she served as the president of the 2022 College Football Playoff Host Committee - a female sports executive leading that event for the first time in Indianapolis. She's a long-time leader in the Indianapolis sports movement who likes creating positive connections with people. She desc...

Britnee talks about one of the biggest challenges of her life (an unexpected divorce) and how she turned it into opportunities for personal growth, advocacy (body positivity, mental health awareness, self-care, self-love, embracing strength as a woman), and creativity. After her divorce, she signed up for a year-long influencer program with Bethany Quinn Stuidos – an Indy-based photographer who ex...

Jennifer describes herself as friendly, genuine and driven. Others describe her as outgoing, confident, passionate. As a wife, mother of 3, a business owner of a new specialized boutique focused on women sizes 12/14 through 22/24, and a survivor of an eating disorder she battled for more 20 years, we describe Jennifer Buchanan as a true badass! She opens up about her eating disorder and addictions...

Lauren is an investigative reporter based at WFYI in Indianapolis and the co-host of Sick, a podcast about what goes wrong in the places meant to keep us healthy. Before she became one of our favorite podcast co-hosts, she honed her journalistic skills at The Herald-Times, in Bloomington. She grew up outside of Annapolis, Maryland and attended Towson University where she majored in journalism – an...

Jen is a full-time podcaster, podcasting editor, and consultant for local business owners. She also has a daily motivational podcast called The UkuDaily Dispatch where she delivers daily inspirational ditties AND she released her first album. Her mission is "to help the do-gooders of the world make a profound impact by putting them in the ears, heads, and hearts of new audiences with podcasts and...

Cheers to this badass woman! Andrea Homoya is the Founder & CEO of Ash & Elm Cider Co. in Indianapolis. She opened the company with her husband, Aaron in 2016, and just 5 years later they have not 1, but 2 locations; ciders AND food, and they’re leading the way in building Indiana into a cider state. She grew up all over the world, spending her youth in Tanzania, California, and Singapore...