Laugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness

This week we were in the mood to laugh, so who better to invite back to the podcast than comedian Charlie Berens. Charlie is about to embark on his fourth stand-up tour, and he creates content for the internet just like us. He’s learned over time to stop chasing likes and algorithms and to focus on enjoying the process. Even if you don’t make silly videos for the internet, we’ve all fallen into th...

I have the best, most loyal friends from different parts of my life but I’ll be honest, the idea of making NEW friends makes my pits sweat. I’m in my late forties, but even thinking about making new friends and all of a sudden I’m thrust back into my middle school when a group of girls made fun of me for walking into their circle and introducing myself. On the podcast this week, Penn and I spoke t...

Penn got me kiteboarding lessons for my birthday. It was so cool, but also very painful. I learned a few life lessons when I went outside my comfort zone. Grab a Comfort Zone tee here! Ask a question or just say hi, by calling 323-364-3929 or emailing us at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com. If you like this podcast please consider leaving us a review! Shop Our Merch Play Our Game Grab Our Book Join...

Our guest today is Dr. Gladys McGarey , a visionary doctor and co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association. Dr. Gladys is 102 years old and known as the mother of holistic medicine. Dr. Gladys has lived an amazing life - she had six children, ran a medical practice for six decades, beat cancer twice, and still walks 3,800 steps a day. She just released her new book, The Well-Lived Life...

True story, when Penn first got diagnosed with ADHD in the mid-90s, his doctor handed him a book called Driven To Distraction . It was a brand new book by Dr. Ned Hallowell about ADHD and it was groundbreaking at the time. Penn's doctor encouraged him to read it to understand his brain. Penn said, "Great!" And then he proceeded to leave it in the backseat of his car... forever. This week we come f...

On the podcast this week, we are answering your questions, but we picked questions you can also ask your family! These are great discussions for a summer roadtrip or around the dinner table. We discuss everything from goals, happiness, and fun conversation starters like: If you had to move, where would you go?  One big thing Penn and I share is a love for travel. Some of my favorite family me...

For some reason, this summer feels busier than our regular school year. Our teen and pre-teen kids are involved in camps, sports, studying for SATs, and thinking about college. When I was their age, I was happy to hang with my friends and maybe get a part-time job scooping ice cream. Nowadays, teens are looking for internships to put on college resumes. What happened to summer? What happened to sl...

I probably say sorry at least twenty times a day. Of course I want to take accountability, but sometimes I apologize when I didn’t do anything wrong. Which got me thinking, is there a problem with saying sorry too much? This week on the podcast, Penn and I invited Award-Winning Leadership Strategist & Global Peak Performance Consultant to Fortune 500s, Shadé Zahrai , to talk to us about what o...

It’s the start of summer, which means going to the pool, grilling out, and heading to the beach… all of which usually include an adult beverage. But lately, Penn and I have been drinking less. For me, too much drinking greatly impacts my sleep. For Penn, cutting back on drinking is about protecting his brain health and trying to prevent Alzheimer’s disease which runs in his family. We discuss our...

I want my kids to be happy. (I know, I know, I know. It’s an impossible and unrealistic goal.) I’ve been in enough therapy sessions to know that chasing “happiness” is a fool's errand. We should really be appreciating all the moments we have on this planet. Being “happy” is a fleeting emotion. So when you get to see your child experience joy, true unbridled joy, you want to bottle the fe...

My goal this year is to put myself in as many uncomfortable situations as possible. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. On The Amazing Race , we were put in MANY uncomfortable positions. I found that it was easier for me to tackle bigger-picture things (like bungee jumping) than the everyday things. Something as simple as making a take-out order makes my pits sweat (and in a recent social medi...

This week on the podcast, we wanted to laugh so we brought in "our Midwest neighbor" to help. Her name is Ann Marie Taepke, and she’s been playing our on-camera neighbor for over 2 years. (She isn’t our real neighbor, but she is really from the Midwest.) What you may not know, is that Ann Marie is a producer, writer, and manager of our weird family business. We talk about how we got connected, fun...

Every time I learn about another mass shooting in this country, I lose at least a day. Though a school shooting in my community is my worst fear—it is happening at outlet malls like in Allen, Texas and at banks like in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s happening at grocery stores, music festivals, movie theaters, and birthday parties. Mass shootings have changed the way we live our lives. So, we wanted t...

Imagine you are headed into your first day at a new job. You walk in the door and suddenly your mind is overwhelmed with thoughts: Nobody likes me. I’m a fraud. I’m dumb. I don’t belong here. Suddenly, you are catastrophizing. Congratulations, you are in a thought trap. Thoughts traps happen to all of us, but anxious people the most. I knew immediately I needed to know more about what was happenin...

Any parent with school-aged children can tell you how crazy the month of May is. Just like the month of December, the calendar is packed with activities, gatherings, and ceremonies. Except no presents, cookies, or twinkling lights. So we call it: Maycember.  This week, I needed to a pick-me-up knowing we were headed into a crazy month. I figured if I was feeling like I needed a pick-me-u...

You guys. It happened. I blinked and my tiny colicky-baby got her license. I keep repeating to myself, “She’s a good driver. She’s ready for this. She’s a good driver.” But still, I think one of the hardest parts of parenting is celebrating the well-earned independence of our growing children, while trying not to openly grieve the stage we’re leaving.  I needed to call a friend...

Recently, Kim said something to me that sort of hit me like a ton of bricks… “I can’t always tell when you’re listening to me.” We wrote a whole book on marriage communication called Everybody Fights with a section on active communication and magic words you can say for conversations that require extra care and attention. But the problem is that I learned how to cheat them.  So I am...

Our kids, Lola and Penn Charles, are getting older, and I have never felt more on the record. Whether it’s driving lessons with Lola or helping PC practice the cooking basics, I find myself teaching them life skills at every turn. Some of the biggest skills are not things they can pull out their phone and look up. So with your help, we created a checklist of 39 essential life skills every tee...

We received a question last week about how to deal with some of the behaviors of ADHD when you are a person who experiences anxiety. It’s something we have talked about plenty of times. The short answer is that it is a challenge for Kim. A few weeks ago, we had a particularly hard morning. Everything was fine, but that does not mean everything was fine . We talk about this and answer your que...

When Kim asked who I’d like to have on the podcast as a guest, I blurted out “Andy Weir!” Weir writes science fiction and is, hands down, my favorite author. And by some miracle, he agreed to come on our podcast to talk to me. It was refreshing to hear him talk so openly about his anxiety. He said, “If you have a mental health issue, you cannot solve it all alone. It’s like trying to fix...

Apparently more people in their 40s get pregnant than I thought... This week, Penn and I talk about having to recently buy a pregnancy test and how that made us reflect on our parenting. We also hear from many of you what you would do differently with a second chance at parenting, and talk to our friends Taylor and Heidi Calmus. The Calmus Family is expecting baby #4 and we hear about their new ch...

There’s a lot of reasons we hold onto things, but one profound thing about that is: Everything that you own, owns a part of you.  This week we talk with Kathryn Snearly, of the viral YouTube channel Do It On A Dime . Kathryn introduced me years ago to the idea of Swedish Death Cleaning. (And no, it’s not where you listen to death metal music while you organize.) If you’re in the stage of life...

In our family, Kim does most of the planning… groceries, kid schedules, house maintenance... so when it comes to family vacations, Kim deserves a break. So I planned our recent family vacation to Chamonix, France. We have talked about how we really loved our time on The Amazing Race, because it got us out of our comfort zone and took away all our distractions. So in that same vein, I wanted to pla...

If you want a master class in forgiveness, marry someone with ADHD. While I am the queen of holding a grudge, Penn couldn’t be more opposite. On this podcast, we discuss the connection between ADHD and forgiveness with Dr. Marcy Caldwell . Her gift for metaphor is something that resonates with Penn understanding his own brain. My favorite is her explanation around the ADHD brain being like a fishb...

There is an adolescent mental health crisis going on in America right now. It’s so severe, in fact, the US Surgeon General issued a rare advisory on protecting youth mental health. Take an already emotional developmental time and couple it with a global pandemic… that’s a lot on teenagers. Dr. Lisa Damour explained that distress should not be your main worry as a parent of a teen. Distress is goin...