We are back today with another fantastic episode, and for my 38th birthday today, I’d like to give you a gift — a conversation about a book that really touched me. We’re chatting today about Dr. Mary E. Anderson’s book The Happy High Achiever: 8 Essentials to Overcome Anxiety, Manage Stress, and Energize Yourself for Success—Without Losing Your Edge, which came out September 24. She writes that we are experiencing an epidemic of high achievers anxiety, which Mary explains in today’s episode. In the book, she writes “The bad news is that right now, you are likely not feeling your best. You may be overwhelmed and tired and frustrated by what feels like an insurmountable mountain of effort, and the truth is, if you continue on this track, you will burn out.” Sometimes achievement becomes a problem and becomes as much of an addictive behavior as maybe some of the more traditionally destructive behaviors. Mary writes of those with high achievers anxiety that they are “plagued with a feeling of inadequacy, no matter how high they soared” and I self-identify as one of these people. But Mary gives us hope, writing that “You can be happy and high achieving,” and that one can move from being an anxious high achiever to, as the book title alludes to, a happy high achiever. Today on the show we chat about Mary’s eight essentials to overcome anxiety, manage stress, and energize yourself for success, which are the roadmap to being a happy high achiever. We also talk about the “Troublesome Trifecta,” and what life as a happy high achiever looks like — and how, with this great book, we can get there. Here to guide us through it all is Dr. Mary E. Anderson, known affectionately as “Dr. A” by her clients, who is a licensed clinical psychologist and sought-after speaker with over a decade of experience helping patients become happier, healthier, and sustainably high achieving. I truly hope that you get as much out of this book and this conversation as I did. Take a listen! The Happy High Achiever: 8 Essentials to Overcome Anxiety, Manage Stress, and Energize Yourself for Success—Without Losing Your Edge by Dr. Mary E. Anderson
I’m so pleased to have on the show today Megan Gorman, who wrote a very compelling book called All the Presidents’ Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money, which is out September 24. Before we get into the book — which isn’t that such a great idea and such a great title? — let me tell you a little more about Megan: she is the founder and managing partner of Chequers Financial Management, a female-owned high-net-worth tax and financial planning firm. Her clientele ranges from entrepreneurs to corporate executives to inheritors of family wealth. She is an attorney by training and is passionate about the problem solving required to work in the world of complex financial planning. She has been named to Forbes’ list of America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors and was a vice president at Ayco, a Goldman Sachs company, and BNY Mellon Wealth Management prior to launching her own firm. Megan is a senior contributor at Forbes, where she writes about personal finance and income tax, and she is frequently cited across prominent financial media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and CNBC. She has now written the brilliant All the Presidents’ Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money, where she dives deep into the personal finances of the presidents. As she writes, “most of their money problems are just like ours.” In the book, Megan teaches readers what president is the best at money (and he may surprise you!), and who is worst with money. Interestingly, Megan writes that, when it comes to solid financial advice, “if you ever asked me what is the best thing you could do financially, my answer would be quite succinct: get married and stay married.” We talk about First Ladies, too, and about financial advice for the presidents and for us; Megan writes about financial fragility and financial resilience, and how “In many of the presidents’ stories, financial fragility is a common theme.” We talk about what grit has to do with wealth, how the American dream is still there but much harder to attain in present times, and so much more. Studying the U.S. presidents and their personal money stories and how they built wealth — or didn’t — is incredibly fascinating. Take a listen. All the Presidents’ Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money by Megan Gorman
Celebrating the giants of American history — the George Washingtons, the Abraham Lincolns, the Martin Luther King Jrs — is important, but behind every larger-than-life American icon is, as Sharon McMahon calls her new book, The Small and the Mighty. The full title of Sharon’s book, which is out September 24, is The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement, and all of these 12 unsung American heroes are extraordinary. As Sharon writes, “How many more Americans who changed the course of history are waiting to be discovered?” And in writing this book and telling the stories of these 12, I could tell with every page and Sharon’s poetic prose that she wanted to inspire the rest of us to do what we can in our corners of the world to make the world a better place, too. As she writes of the 12 she chose, “None of them could do it all, but they all could do something. These are the small and the mighty. And we can be too.” As she puts it, “It’s the small who truly are the mighty.” It’s interesting, because I find Sharon herself to be an unsung hero — although, as her profile rises and rises, she is very deservedly getting her flowers. Sharon has become known as “America’s Government Teacher” and is a podcaster, author, Instagram influencer, and law and government teacher. Sharon’s content on her podcast, Instagram, and other platforms mostly centers around civics and history-focused material, and she is particularly interested in combatting misinformation from both sides of the aisle and providing a nonpartisan explanation on the application of constitutional law to contemporary American politics. If you don’t already follow her work, you must. Sharon is a longtime high school law and government teacher and started publishing politics-oriented content to her Instagram during the pandemic back in 2020, mostly as a response to what she saw as rising misinformation on her own social media feeds amid not just the pandemic but also the presidential election that year. And there’s no better time to follow Sharon as we are once again in a presidential election year, just in case you weren’t aware. Kidding. Sharon then launched Government for Grownups, a workshop series about U.S. history and government, and is also deeply involved in philanthropy, as well, continually using her platform for good. Her podcast is called “Here’s Where It Gets Interesting,” and her Instagram is called “Sharon Says So.” She is a remarkable woman that I can’t wait for you to learn from today. Take a listen. The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon
I am a huge sports fan, and both the college football season and the NFL season are in full swing. Sports-wise, this is one of my favorite times of the year, and our guest today Joe Posnanski has written a book for all lovers of the game called Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments that you definitely won’t want to miss. Joe chose 100 moments because of the 100 yards in a football field, and talks to us today about how on earth he chose just 100 moments out of the hundreds and even thousands he could have chosen. He talks about what anecdote was most fun to write about, a player and a play that epitomizes football to him, why football matters to society and culture, and yes, even Taylor Swift. We also brought up some of my childhood memories with the Kansas City Chiefs, and it left me feeling very nostalgic. The book is out September 17, and follows Joe’s books The Baseball 100 and also Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments. Joe talks about simultaneously loving both college and pro football, and how you can also love multiple sports, just like he loves football and baseball, which he writes in the book is like living a double life. Joe is a former senior columnist for Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Kansas City Star and currently writes for his personal blog JoeBlogs. He’s one of the most well-respected sportswriters in the game and has written a number of other books in addition to the three already mentioned. In both 2002 and 2005, Joe was named the best sports columnist in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and has won numerous other awards for his work, including Sports Emmy Awards in both 2014 and 2016 as part of NBC’s Olympics coverage. He hosts his own weekly podcast, “The PosCast,” and he’s just a great guy. Trust me—if you weren’t already excited about football season being back, you certainly will be after this chat and this book. Take a listen. Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments by Joe Posnanski
My guest today truly needs no introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, we are fortunate enough today to have the one, the only Connie Chung here with us to chat about her memoir, Connie, out September 17. Definitely stick around for the surprise Maury Povich pop in midway through the conversation—Maury, of course, is Connie’s husband of 40 years. Where to even start with Connie Chung and what an inspiration she is to female journalists like me? Connie is the youngest of five sisters, and she writes in her memoir she was a kid “who had no voice at home, never uttered a peep at school, never raised a hand to answer a teacher’s question,” and morphed “into someone who was fearless, ambitious, driven, full of chutzpah and moxie, who spoke up to get what she wanted.” She writes that her family was shocked when she pursued a profession that required speaking in front of millions of viewers. Connie, of course, is a legendary broadcast journalist. She also writes, “the truth is, being a reporter fit perfectly with my personality. I preferred to observe, watching what unfolded before me, never expressing my opinion.” As the fifth daughter, Connie was very aware that her parents kept trying for a son. She then went on to break into a very male-dominated business at the time where the white man was the ideal. In fact, she writes in the book about striving to be like a white man early in her career. She was told at one point “you’ll never make it in this business,” but guess what? She did! And actually, her dream of working at CBS, as she writes, “came true because of timing, a connection, and who I was—a woman and a minority.” And that was all thanks to the Civil Rights Act President Lyndon Baines Johnson passed in 1964. Connie is a legend in the broadcast journalism space. She has worked for CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC—truly remarkable. When she joined Dan Rather as the co-anchor spot of the CBS Evening News, there had been 17 long years from the time Barbara Walters co-anchored a network evening news program to Connie taking over the co-anchor spot with Dan Rather. Through this appointment, Connie became the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News and the first Asian to anchor any news program in the U.S. Though a mountaintop moment this certainly was, she writes “Still, the feeling of always having to prove myself weighed heavily on my mind.” She was let go from the CBS Evening News just two years later, and she writes “For two years, I had held what I’d thought was an equal seat at the table with three white men. But now I saw clearly that was never true. Losing all that was gut-wrenching, breaking my rock-solid confidence.” We talk about all of this and so much more in today’s episode, and I can’t wait for you to hear our conversation. Take a listen! Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung
If you are as big of a Selling Sunset fan as I am, then you are going to love today’s episode. Season eight of Netflix’s massive hit reality series just dropped September 6, and here today to chat about her new book Selling Sunshine: Surviving Teenage Motherhood, Thriving in Luxury Real Estate, and Embracing My Voice is one of the show’s stars, Mary Bonnet. Mary has written an incredibly vulnerable book that takes us inside her struggles, her pain, her heartache, but also her joy, her happiness, and her success. In the book and in our conversation today Mary talks about finding out she was pregnant at 15 with her son, Austin; her relationship with Jason Oppenheim of The Oppenheim Group (the real estate agency that is the basis of Selling Sunset and where Mary has worked since long before the Netflix camera crews came into the office); her successful real estate career; how she felt when she learned her real-life workplace would soon become the subject of a Netflix reality show; when she knew she was famous; her very handsome husband Romain; and so much more. Mary writes about the “obstacles behind the smile”—not just getting pregnant as a teenager but also Mary’s experience as a sexual assault survivor. In the book, which is out September 24, Mary writes “My life has hardly been a linear journey.” But she also writes, “2024 is going to be an epic year, I can feel it!” and I certainly hope that for her (and for all of us). This book is proof that there’s always more to someone’s story than meets the eye, and I’m excited for all of you to read it and get to know Mary a little better today. Mary was named one of Variety’s 40 Most Powerful Women on Reality TV and, outside of Selling Sunset, is vice president at the Oppenheim Group and a prominent figure in the world of luxury real estate in Los Angeles. She’s sold over $140 million in real estate to date and is one of the leading real estate agents in the city, and just a lovely person. Take a listen to our conversation. Selling Sunshine: Surviving Teenage Motherhood, Thriving in Luxury Real Estate, and Embracing My Voice by Mary Bonnet
Today on the show to kick off season 14 is a second-time guest: Kathy Iandoli, who we spoke to back in 2021 about her book on the legendary Aaliyah. And Kathy is back with a book she co-wrote with another legendary musician—Eve, who in a word, is just fabulous. In the book, we learn so much about this rapper, actress, talk show host, and multihyphenate, including that she felt cursed by being born with the name Eve—as in the first woman, Eve, according to the Bible. We talk today with Kathy about Eve’s childhood in Philadelphia and how that molded her into the woman she is today; how she opened so many doors for women in music—rap specifically—as the First Lady of Ruff Ryderz, and what it was like to be a female in such a male-dominated industry; the biggest obstacle she faced in her 25-year career; and what she’s really like when the spotlight is off of her. We also talk about Eve being 43 when she gave birth for the first time to her son, Wilde, and how that shifted her life. As she writes towards the end of Who’s That Girl?, which is out September 17, “The ride isn’t as rough anymore, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.” (“Who’s That Girl?” by the way, is probably my favorite Eve song.) You know who Eve is—she’s a Grammy-winning rapper and singer with singles like the aforementioned “Who’s That Girl?,” “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” and “Tambourine”; she’s an actress who has appeared in films like Barbershop and television shows like Queens; she’s a talk show host and has been on The Talk and The Real; and now she’s an author. She’s also a history maker, by the way—when she won the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” with Gwen Stefani, she was the first recipient ever of that award. I love that. Today on the show we have Eve’s fantastic co-writer Kathy Iandoli, who has written everywhere from Vibe to The Source, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Cosmopolitan, and so much more. Kathy specializes in music, specifically hip-hop, and has written books like God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop and the aforementioned Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah, among others. She’s also a professor of music business at New York University, a documentarian who has produced film projects on women in hip-hop for BBC and Netflix (including the award-winning Ladies First!), and one of my favorite guests. I’m so happy to have her back on. Who’s That Girl?: A Memoir by Eve and Kathy Iandoli
Unbelievably, we’ve reached the season finale of season 13! What a season, huh? Don’t you worry, because we’ve got more conversations to come in season 14. But today we’ve got a great one for you—Julia Boorstin of CNBC is here to chat about her buzzy, powerful book When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them, which came out in 2022 but is still making waves today. The book is, in my opinion, a masterpiece about women, leadership, and business. And Julia knows what she’s talking about—she’s a longtime CNBC reporter and before that was at Fortune magazine, and her work covers business, tech, and entrepreneurship. The crux of the book centers around how and why women leaders thrive, and why women are essential to a successful workplace. Today we talk about what skillsets women specifically bring to a workplace; what women need to succeed in business and what needs to be changed in the modern workplace; women’s adaptability advantage and why resilience matters; and how, if companies care about making money, they’ll invest in women. When Women Lead zooms in on the stories of over 60 female CEOs and is, as Julia writes, a “radical blueprint for the future of business and our world at large.” It’s an absolutely necessary read and I can’t wait to talk about it with Julia today. Julia Boorstin is the senior media and tech correspondent for CNBC and is a graduate of Princeton; she worked at Fortune, has contributed to both CNN and CNN Headline News, and joined CNBC in 2006, and in 2013 created the CNBC Disruptor 50 list, an annual list that highlights private companies that are challenging established industries. She also helped launch the network’s “Closing the Gap” initiative, covering the people and companies closing gender and diversity gaps. This is the perfect conversation to end season 13 on. Take a listen! When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them by Julia Boorstin
Today on the show, we’re talking about the history and power of hairdressing and how, as our guest Dr. Elizabeth Block puts it in her new book, how hair “contributed to the lived experiences of women.” Her new book Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing is out September 10 and looks at hair through an academic lens—and it’s totally compelling. We get into the cultural impact of hair; why hair is, as the title suggests, something that is beyond vanity; how choosing a hairstyle or color is much deeper than surface level; hairdressers, wigs, salons, hair products, hair tools, hair length, and so much more. We dig into when people realized that hair as an entrepreneurial venture could be profitable, hair throughout history, and what historians like our guest today might say about our hair 100 years from now. Walking us through it all is Dr. Elizabeth Block, who teaches us that studying hair and its importance is anything but frivolous. She is an art historian and a senior editor in the publications and editorial department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She is also the author of the award-winning Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion, and her work has appeared in Town & Country, Slate, BBC News, and BBC Woman’s Hour, among other prestigious places. I’m excited for you to hear what she has to say as we dig in. Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing by Dr. Elizabeth Block
The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, is once again our topic du jour today, as we’re talking about Max Boot’s new book Reagan: His Life and Legend, which comes out on September 10. In the fantastic 880-page book, Max quotes someone as having said of Reagan that “there was almost no one who did not succumb to his magic.” Today on the show we talk about what that magic was; about his love story with his wife, Nancy Reagan, who Max writes in the book without her Reagan “would never have been elected to anything”; how he and his presidency are perceived 20 years after his death in 2004; and if, as Max writes in the book, “Reaganism contain[ed] the seeds of Trumpism?” Max and I talk about the differences between Reagan the man and Reagan the public figure, how he was as a father to his four children (one of whom we’ve had on the show!), where his elevated sense of self-confidence came from, and, of course, his legacy. Much to get into, and here to delve into it all with me is Max Boot, an author, historian, and policy analyst who, in addition to writing 880-page definitive biographies, is also a columnist for The Washington Post, a global affairs analyst for CNN, and the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to this new book, Max has also written The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present. He has also written The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power and War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today. An impressive man who has certainly written an impressive book. Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot
Let me ask you a question—how much time have you spent really, truly thinking about the United States’ second president, John Adams? Probably not a ton—but today’s conversation will certainly make you think about him, and probably think a bit differently about him, at that. John Adams came into the presidency on the heels of an impossible act to follow—President George Washington, who today’s guest Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky writes in her new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, was set apart, as “no one else possessed his stature or enjoyed the same level of public trust—and no one else ever would again.” When it came to John Adams, Lindsay writes in the book—which is out September 5—that he “was tasked with navigating the presidency without that unique prestige. He was guaranteed to fall short in comparison to Washington.” Even if Washington wasn’t as beloved a leader as he was, it still would have been a challenge to be the second president of the United States. As Lindsay writes, “Whoever came next was going to mold the office for all the chief executives to follow. John Adams was an experienced diplomat and a thoughtful constitutional thinker. He was also irascible, stubborn, quixotic, and certain that he knew best most of the time. He proved the right man for the moment.” In our conversation today, Lindsay explains why that is so, and how Washington may have created the presidency, but Adams defined it. Today we talk about Adams’ relationship with Washington (after all, he was Washington’s vice president); Adams’ relationship with Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded him in office; how Washington undermined Adams’ success as president; Adams as a leader throughout his 27 years dedicated to public service; Adams as a husband to Abigail and a father to, among others, a future president, John Quincy Adams; and so much more. Incredibly interestingly, Lindsay is the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library and the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. She’s also the co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture and was a historian at the White House Historical Association. She has been published in Time Magazine, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly, and CNN.com, and, as a presidential historian, is a frequent presidential commentator on national TV and radio. Today’s conversation is certainly about President John Adams, but it's about the presidency as a whole, too, and I’m excited for you to listen to what Lindsay has to say. Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic by Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky
We talk about power frequently in society, but do we ever really put much thought into status? And what even is status, exactly? On the show today, we talk about how much status matters, and our guest, Dr. Alison Fragale, writes in her new book Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve that resources follow respect, and very little advancement is going to happen unless someone has respect—also known as status. Alison writes that women are largely disadvantaged when it comes to status, and that the aforementioned power is based on status so, ergo, when women in particular have lower status, they also have less power. Status is critically important, but we rarely pay attention to it and have sparsely put words to it—that is until Likeable Badass came along. The book came out September 3 and delves into the science of success—one of my favorite topics to study. Alison’s playbook, as outlined in the book, consists of the three steps of understand the game, master the plays, and coach others. She teaches us what the likeable badass solution is, how it’s important for women especially to get credit for both likeability and competence (and how it has, heretofore, been so difficult for both to coexist), how things can often get worse as a career advances, not better, and she introduces us to five limiting mindsets that we need to conquer. If you’re looking to advance in any workplace, we’ve got to figure out status, which, simply defined, is what others’ perception of us is. Here to walk us through it all is Dr. Alison Fragale, who is a behavioral scientist and the Mary Farley Ames Lee Distinguished Scholar of Organizational Behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work has been published in the most prestigious academic journals in her field as well as outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, and The Boston Globe. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in math and economics and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business; she is also a renowned keynote speaker, trusted advisor, and genuinely good person, and I’m so excited for you to hear from her today. Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve by Dr. Alison Fragale
Today on the show we’re talking about a bona fide beauty icon—Elizabeth Arden, who built the cosmetics empire of the same name beginning in 1910. Now, if you think about that time period, not many women were running a beauty empire, but she was. At the height of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world, but what do we really know about Elizabeth Arden, the woman? Well, first of all, Elizabeth Arden is not her birth name—that would be Florence Nightengale Graham. Elizabeth Arden is largely to thank for establishing makeup as proper and appropriate, and even necessary, as previously makeup was only associated with actresses and prostitutes. Today’s guest, Dr. Stacy A. Cordery, has written a brilliant book about this remarkable woman called Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire, which is out September 3. Buoyed by her genuine belief that “every woman deserves to be beautiful,” as Stacy writes, “her salons empowered women—not just to look their best, but to be their best.” Elizabeth Arden was known for its three simple foundational skincare steps—cleanse, tone, and nourish. It’s also known for its red door salons, the Arden look, color harmony, and now, for being an empire. Today on the show, Stacy teaches us about the woman and about the company, which was acquired by Revlon in 2016 for a whopping $870 million. Elizabeth Arden is responsible for fashioning the American woman. She made cosmetics mandatory, if one wanted to be fashionable. Stacy writes that her creative genius still influences fashion and design today, and “From the humblest of origins, pioneering businesswoman Elizabeth Arden grew into a global industry leader." She died in 1966 at 84 years old, but certainly not before leaving her mark. Dr. Stacy A. Cordery is here to tell us all about her. She is a biographer and a professor of history at Iowa State University, and is the author of Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts, and two books about President Theodore Roosevelt. You might have seen her work on NPR, The History Channel, CNN, C-SPAN, and The Smithsonian Channel, and now she’s right here, right now. Let’s take a listen. Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire by Dr. Stacy A. Cordery
Tomorrow, August 30, the biopic Reagan hits theaters, with Dennis Quaid playing President Ronald Reagan. We’re so fortunate on the show today to have a man who knew Reagan well—Ken Khachigian, whose new book Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon, focuses on his relationship with not just Reagan but also President Richard Nixon, as well. Right smack dab on the front cover of the book, which just came out on July 23, Ken is described as a speechwriter, confidant, and strategist to political legends. In today’s episode, I ask Ken what role he enjoyed playing most and why, and which role was the most challenging for him. Ken was a longtime aide to President Nixon and was there for both his resignation 50 years ago this month and the Frost/Nixon interviews. Later, he was President Reagan’s chief speechwriter. Ken is a veteran of nine presidential campaigns, and in this book takes us in the room with not just one but two presidents. In addition to his work as a successful attorney, Ken became California’s premier Republican strategist in elections for governor, senator, and attorney general. He helped Nixon craft his memoirs and wrote notable speeches for Reagan like his first inaugural address, welcome home remarks for hostages taken during the Iran hostage crisis, his acceptance speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention, and, four years later, his farewell address at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Most recently, when it comes to presidential campaigns, he served as a senior advisor on the 1996 campaign of Bob Dole, the 2000 campaign of John McCain, and the 2008 campaign of Fred Thompson. Take a listen to what he has to say. Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon by Ken Khachigian Visit Ken’s website at reaganandnixon.com!
When it comes to books that have impacted my life for the better, Kara Loewentheil’s Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get It Out tops the list. It came out May 21, and in it she writes that our thoughts “are like GPS—they tell your brain what to focus on, how to feel, and what to do. You have to set that GPS on purpose to create the life you want.” To do so, Kara walks us through three steps: 1. How to identify what thoughts are really driving you. 2. How to evaluate whether a thought is serving you or not. 3. How to change your thoughts. Today on the show we’re talking about the Voice as a proper noun, neuroplasticity, the brain gap, the thought-emotion-behavior-return loop, and how to create a new neural pathway through the brilliant thought ladder concept. If it all sounds overwhelming, I promise you, both Kara’s book and this conversation breaks it all down into easily digestible and understandable bits that will improve your life. If my ringing endorsement isn’t enough, Take Back Your Brain is a New York Times bestseller, a No. 1 nonfiction bestseller for USA Today, and a Publishers Weekly bestseller. If you are looking to stop endless negative self-talk and step into power and confidence and joy—and especially if you’re a woman—you have arrived at the right conversation as we aim to take back our thoughts, getting rid of the ones that no longer serve us. Kara is the host of the extremely popular “UnF*ck Your Brain” podcast; she’s also a Harvard Law School graduate, Master Life Coach, and the founder of The New School of Feminist Thought. Take Back Your Brain is her first book, but my goodness, I hope it’s not her last. Take a listen to this powerful conversation. Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get It Out by Kara Loewentheil
Today on the show we are talking about American fashion, specifically Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion, the brand-new book from Nancy MacDonell, out August 27. Prior to World War II, American designers were nothing short of second-class citizens to the French. But, after the Nazis invaded Paris during the war, everything changed for French fashion, and by the time the war ended in 1945, the American look was in fashion. What is the American look, you ask? Nancy answers that for us today, as well as introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters who helped birth American fashion: Elizabeth Hawes, Eleanor Lambert, and Claire McCardell, for starters. Soon, American fashion began to beat the French at their own game, and this is all a leadup to the Battle of Versailles, which we interviewed Robin Givhan about on the show last year. American fashion is thriving now—at $500 billion, it’s the largest fashion industry in the world—but there would likely be no Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Tory Burch, Halston, or Michael Kors without the Empresses of Seventh Avenue. These women have largely been forgotten to history—that is, until Nancy MacDonnell came along. Nancy is a fashion journalist and fashion historian that writes The Wall Street Journal column “Fashion with a Past,” which explores the historic roots of current fashion trends. Nancy has written everywhere from The New York Times to Elle, Vogue, and many other publications, and she’s written five books, including The Classic Ten: The True Story of the Little Black Dress and Nine Other Fashion Favorites. In addition to her work as a writer, Nancy is also an adjunct lecturer in fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Let’s take a listen to what she has to say. Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion by Nancy MacDonell
Today I am talking to author Heath Hardage Lee about one of America’s First Ladies, and perhaps one of our most private ones—Pat Nixon, wife of President Richard Nixon. The timing is interesting: earlier this month marked 50 years since President Nixon’s resignation from the presidency following Watergate, and earlier this month Heath released her really, really fantastic new book The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady, which I absolutely tore through. There is so much we have gotten wrong about Mrs. Nixon over the years. First of all, she was a private woman, which led her to come across as, as the book’s title suggests, mysterious. Misunderstood, even. Heath and I speak about this in today’s episode, but her public persona was “Plastic Pat,” while the real Mrs. Nixon was anything but. Heath and I talk today about her love story with Richard Nixon; how Mrs. Nixon was First Lady and running the East Wing of the White House at a very interesting time, constantly toeing the line between the traditional wife and modern woman; what doors she opened for women; an example of Pat at her best and at her wobbliest; and so much more. Pat Nixon died in 1993, and, perhaps indicative of his love for her and how much he needed her, President Nixon died just 10 months later. To teach us more about Mrs. Nixon is Heath Hardage Lee, an award-winning historian, biographer, and curator. Heath’s book The League of Wives is currently being developed into a television series, and Heath and her work have been featured on The Today Show, C-SPAN, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for outlets like Time, The Atlantic, The Hill, and White House History Quarterly. Take a listen to our conversation. The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee
Today on the show we’re returning to the Alex Murdaugh saga, as I call it—this is actually not the first time on the show we’ve spoken about it and not even the first time in season 13 we’ve spoken about it. It is compelling to me for its savagery—I can’t understand it, a man who could do this evil to his family and to so many others, as well. Today on the show we have Valerie Bauerlein, here to talk about her brilliant new book The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty, which comes out today, August 20. Alex was the Prince of Hampton County, South Carolina, as Valerie puts it, and he came from a long line of Murdaughs who believed “To live above the law, you must become the law.” So they did that. They all became lawyers—or solicitors, as they’re known in Hampton County—and ran the town and the county. Not only do we learn more about Alex and his immediate family of Maggie, Buster, and Paul Murdaugh in this book, but also the deeper Murdaugh family history, filled with corruption and crime and callousness, quite frankly. Valerie is such a talented writer—she writes that, for Alex, “duplicity was his birthright,” and in this book we learn information I’d never heard or read before about his murder case for the deaths of Maggie and Paul and other crimes he committed, as well. As Valerie writes, “Three generations of Murdaughs had devoted a century to building a legal dynasty. Now, in a little more than ten years, Alex had burned the whole thing down.” This book details how he did just that. Valerie Bauerlein is on the show today, and she is fantastic. She is a national reporter for The Wall Street Journal who writes about small-town America and Southern politics, economics, and culture. She has covered the South her entire career, including 19 years at The Wall Street Journal and four years at The State in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m excited for you to meet her and learn more about this saga from her. The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty by Valerie Bauerlein
I’m really excited to bring you this conversation today about a book that came out in 2017 called Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Dr. Renee Engeln. In the book, Dr. Engeln introduces us to beauty sick culture and what it feels like and looks like for women and girls. She writes in the book “How might women’s lives be different if they book the energy and concern aimed at their own appearance and aimed it out at the world instead?” If women didn’t have to worry about this, think of all we could get done. The desire to be thin and pretty, to be the beauty ideal, seems to affect girls younger and younger, and in Beauty Sick Dr. Engeln introduces us to what she calls the “tyranny of the mirror,” and writes that looks shouldn’t matter—but they do. Beauty is used as a source of power for women, and girls learn that the most important asset they possess is their physical beauty. We don’t teach boys and men this same lesson. Beauty, Dr. Engeln writes, is a weak and temporary power, and beauty sickness is a barrier to gender equality, where we see women as objects instead of human beings. Today we talk about how social media has played into this, how beauty sickness revolves around shame, how it attacks women’s mental and emotional well-being and their financial well-being, as well, and how we should, in her words, “turn away from the mirror to face the world.” Dr. Engeln writes that she’s looking for “a culture that sees women not as objects to be looked at, but as human beings who are ready and able to change the world in remarkable ways,” and so am I. Dr. Engeln’s TEDx talk on beauty sickness received more than 700,000 views and reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. This book combines scientific studies and the voices of real women of all ages, and I’m really excited to introduce you to Dr. Engeln, who has been a professor for 15 years at Northwestern, where she teaches about psychopathology, the psychology of women and gender, social psychology, and the psychology of human beauty. In addition to publishing numerous empirical journal articles and presenting at academic conferences on body image, media, and the objectification of women, Dr. Engeln presents talks on these topics to groups around the country and is regularly interviewed by media outlets, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Today.com, The Huffington Post, and more. At Northwestern, her lab, The Body and Media Lab, conducts research exploring issues surrounding women’s body images, with a particular emphasis on cultural practices that create or enforce the frequently contentious relationship women have with their bodies. Take a listen to this compelling conversation. Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Dr. Renee Engeln
We’ve actually already talked about today’s book and author before on the show—back in January, when the book came out, we mentioned it on the show as it was my first #ReadwithMC book club pick. And now, how lucky are we today to have Kate Kennedy on I’d Rather Be Reading discussing her book One in a Millennial: On Friendships, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In, which came out January 23. This book put into words everything I wish I could have said about being a millennial and perfectly nails down the millennial experience into 336 pages. Some of it is nostalgic and fun—stick around for our lightning round at the end of the episode—but some of it, quite frankly, isn’t pretty. In this book and in this conversation Kate introduces us to the millennial paradox, what a lost millennial is, and so much more. In this book and in her work, Kate Kennedy has become the voice of a generation. She is a podcast host of the wildly popular show “Be There In Five,” a New York Times bestselling author—in addition to One in a Millennial, she also wrote a book about her love/hate relationship with social media called Twinkle, Twinkle, Social Media Star, and is a pop culture commentator. She also invented the “remindoormat” in 2014, which she created as a hobby after she decided to paint “turn off your curling iron” on her doormat in an attempt to not burn down her apartment. She then took it to a wider scale to much success, and called it Be There in Five (which later became the name of her podcast), which launched a line of reminder, affirmation, and custom doormats for people on the go. The doormats took off, and Kate left her corporate marketing job to run the business full-time. Kate is still writing her story—as are all millennials—and she’s here to talk about her book with us today. I want to make a special dedication to my dear friend Mary, who loves Kate as much as I do and is a fellow millennial and just about the best friend, cheerleader, and hype woman a girl can have. I love you Mary, and I hope all of you love this episode. One in a Millennial: On Friendships, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy