A lot of stories of people being authentic and vulnerable this week (4.17.25)

And even a recommendation for *gasp* a celebrity-hosted podcast! And also.. assassination memes, because this is where we are these days..and more!

Quick notes:

• This is a weekly paid Substack post so there will be a paypall. The free monthly one comes out the first Thursday of each month. If you’d like to upgrade, I would love to have you on the paid side!

• If you’re a paid subscriber, we just had our first bookclub conversation this week on Abundance. You can watch the recording of that conversation in the Bookclub tab, as well as see the list of articles and books that came up in that chat. Our next conversation is April 28 to discuss the second half of the book. Feel free to come to the second even if you didn’t come to the first :)

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from listening 🎧

There’s a new podcast season from the Atlantic’s “How To” podcast series (which I love); this one is called How to Age Up. The second episode “How to Wish You Were 66 Instead of 35” is particularly good (there’s only 2 eps out so far). There’s this very obviously overwhelming narrative in our culture around how your life is OVER when you are older. That you’re no longer attractive, mobile, interesting. It’s a horrible notion and it’s seeped deeply into virtually all of our psyches. Research shows that if you have positive (or even neutral) associations with aging, you are more likely to live longer with more positive health outcomes¹ What I loved about this podcast episode is the discussion around menopausal zest—the energy, confidence, strength, and general sense of enjoyment that post-menopausal women often experience in life. What a positive thing to look forward to!