I'm Here Too

We thought adulthood was the destination. It turns out it's only a stop along the way. After seven conversations about friendship, ambition, identity, and reinvention in midlife, I reflect on what I learned from the season and what those conversations revealed about my own next chapter. I'll bring the honesty. You bring the mixtape.

What does it actually look like to navigate life over the course of two decades after college? In this Season Three bonus feature of “I’m Here Too,” I asked my guests one question: What would you tell your younger self if you were the commencement speaker? What they shared wasn’t generic inspiration. It’s real talk about shifting paths, handling social pressure, and why taking action (“do the doin...

In this episode, I talk with Leelila Strogov about ambition, stewardship, identity, and what responsibility looks like in midlife. Leelila is the Founder and CEO of AtomicMind, a global education consulting firm helping high-achieving students navigate some of the world’s most competitive institutions. But this conversation isn’t really about admissions. It’s about formation: how people learn who...

If you've ever chased a career path mostly because it was expected, and felt the gap between what you wanted and what you thought you were supposed to want, this one is for you. Rory Eakin spent a summer in a suit, in an office building, knowing it was wrong. He wanted to want it. He didn't. He said no to the job, went to Cape Town to teach math, and began a series of career deviations tha...

What would make you walk away from a Fortune 500 career to become an “old founder?” In this episode, I reconnect with my middle school buddy, Jon Zweifler. We talk about hitting a ceiling in your career and what happens when you realize there is no “next job” that will teach you something new. Jon shares his journey from the Fortune 500 to life as a tech founder who is building Reed AI from the gr...

“You have to live as you're going to your objectives. You can't just wait for them.” Kahwa and I met in elementary school. We grew up together at the same small private school in New Jersey and lost close track when her family moved in middle school. On September 11, 2001, she was working at the IMF in Washington, D.C. That experience and the very specific decision she made the next day be...

In this episode, I reconnect with Sunil Ayyagari, someone I’ve known since we were kids, to talk about time, identity, ambition, and what it looks like to build a life that surprises you. Sunil reflects on growing up queer in the late 80s and 90s, when stigma and fear shaped what was visible, and how pop culture touchstones like Madonna and Pedro Zamora, plus early AOL chat rooms, helped him piece...

If you graduated from college in the early 2000s, this one might feel familiar. Jeff and I have known each other since nursery school. Back then, we were trying to sell “pencils” made out of sticks. By the time we graduated from college in 2001, the message was clear: there was a hierarchy of “good jobs.” Consulting. Finance. Real estate. There was real social pressure to choose the prestigious pa...

If you’re somewhere between 40 and 55, chronologically or otherwise, this one might feel familiar. Mayuri and I have known each other since we were kids. This year marks 25 years since we graduated from college in 2001. Our conversation begins with the strange mix of sadness and surprise that comes with realizing how fast that happened. When your doctor is suddenly younger than you. When you still...

We thought adulthood was the destination. It turns out it's only a stop along the way. Seven guests. Real conversations about burnout, reinvention, parenting, ambition, responsibility, and what it actually feels like to be in your forties and fifties. We'll bring the honest conversation. You bring the mixtape.

If you’ve listened to any of the full length conversations or bonus episodes this season, or even just parts of them, you might be wondering what to do with what you heard. Not in a big, life-overhaul way. More like: what’s actually useful right now? This short companion episode offers a simple way to take the themes from Season Two into the week ahead. It names the core themes that came up across...

This bonus episode is for people who have been doing this for a while. Not just starting out. Not in the honeymoon phase. Somewhere in the long middle. Drawing from conversations across Season Two, this episode brings together voices reflecting on time passing, changing seasons, and what it looks like to stay with creative work when momentum slows, clarity fades, or life intervenes. You won’t hear...

In this episode, I talk to brand strategist James Wu, founder of Studio Tomo, about creativity as a collective practice rather than a solo pursuit. James shares how his early love of album art, magazines, and design shaped his understanding of brand as feeling and experience. He traces his career from digital advertising to nonprofit work, and eventually to founding Studio Tomo, a studio built aro...

In this episode, I talk with Rana Campbell , the creator behind Dreams in Drive , a podcast geared toward creatives & lifestyle entrepreneurs who want to learn how to take their dreams out of Park and into Drive. Together, we explore what it means to build a creative life over time: through career changes, motherhood, grief, intuition, and the desire to leave something meaningful behind. This...

In this episode, I talk with artists and co-directors Tamalin Baumgarten and Meredith Leich about the Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residency and the creative partnership that sustains it. Tamalin shares her early relationship to Cuttyhunk through her family and how returning to the island as an adult shaped both her painting practice and her desire to create a residency rooted in community. Meredith re...

In this episode, I talk with artists and collaborators Jason Tranchida and Matthew Lawrence , whose creative partnership spans performance, publishing, and multi-year collaborative projects. Their work includes the long-running art publication Headmaster and the immersive musical documentary Scandalous Conduct , rooted in archival research about the Newport Navy Sex Scandal of 1919. Together they...

Creative culture often reinforces the idea that meaningful work happens in isolation. But listening back to these conversations, a different pattern emerges. In this bonus episode, voices from across Season Two reflect on the relationships that make creative work possible. Partners, collaborators, friends, and communities show up not as background support, but as part of the work itself. This epis...

No interview. No polish. Voice notes. This one’s about women.

No interview. No polish. Voice notes. This one’s about need. With an assist from Melissa Etheridge.

In this episode, I talk with artist and educator Mike Mitchell , whose creative life is shaped by love, lineage, and a deep attention to the everyday. Mike’s art emerges in the “creases and cracks” of his life: grocery store walls, family rituals, neighborhood stories, and the long partnership that anchors him. Together we explore what it means to grow creatively in adulthood, how identity and pla...

No interview. No polish. Voice notes. This one's about megaphones. And Maya Angelou.

No interview. No polish. Voice notes. This one is about loneliness. And Jodie Foster.

In this episode, artists and producers, Everest Hall and Mike Russnak take us inside a shared life built, literally, from the ground up. We talk about art school, self-education, reinvention, homelessness, humor, moral courage, astrology, and the unexpected power of moving across the country with nothing but each other. Together they describe what partnership looks like when it’s deeply creative:...

As we begin Season Two of I’m Here Too , this bonus episode brings together voices from across the season to talk honestly about what creativity actually needs to survive inside real lives. Instead of discipline or hustle, you’ll hear people talk about conditions. Time. Space. Safety. Care. Flexibility. Structures that make creative work possible rather than exhausting. This episode is not advice...

Welcome back to I’m Here Too! This season, I’m talking with the people who shape and support our creative lives. Partners. Collaborators. Friends. Community-builders. Together we explore how creativity grows in relationship, what it takes to stay close to our vision while being seen by others, and how the people around us influence, steady, challenge, and inspire the work we do. Off we go, enjoy!