I’m sure I’ve told you before about my favorite podcast Acquired. I won’t bore you with all the reasons I love it, but I will say this – I am a superfan. I listen to old episodes (IKEA, Costco and Rolex are some of my faves), and I listen to new ones as soon as they drop. I own the merch, and I belong to their Slack channel where other nerds fans like me discuss the show and all sorts of related topics. 

So you can bet that when the (second, ever) live event at Radio City Music Hall was announced for July 15th, I blocked off the date in my calendar. And when tickets went on sale in early May, your girl snagged front row seats. I was so excited to go, and when Abby wasn’t available to join m...

Most of us grow up learning various life skills from our parents. Some of those skills are critically important, like a sense of humor or how to apologize. Some are more practical, like how to purify water from a stream or power wash vinyl siding. 

In my family, my sister and I learned a lot of things growing up, but “practical” skills? Debatable. I’m not sure that anyone ever saved money or survived in the woods by knowing all the words to Cats! or where Vermeer lived (Delft!) So having grown up in a home where DIY projects were pretty much limited to framing pictures and re-covering dining room chairs, you can infer that the world of commercial construction was pretty unfamiliar.



Needless ...

Real Housewives fans like me know that Bravo’s editors don't let anything slide… and we love them for it. Heather swears she never said something? Cue the shady music, the cutaway, and the evidentiary reel from three episodes ago where she said that very thing with freshly filled lips and a glass of Sauvy B. 

The fine folks at Bravo don’t just roll tape to set the record straight; their slow-motion replays and neon captions make fans like me squeal with delight at the gotcha! comeuppance from our couches.

Every so often, I wish I had my own room of Bravo editors to review the tapes and alert me when someone is being less than truthful, and I know I’m not alone here. In fact, it’s a sent...

A couple weeks ago we talked about why people lose their ever-loving minds and try to Mortal Kombat us when we tell them they’re going to need more money to open their brick and mortar business. 

So today we’re taking it one step farther and discussing one of the biggest reasons why it costs way more to get open than people often expect: brick and mortar businesses require certain up front expenditures that you absolutely, positively have to incur whether you want to or not. 

It would seem that the amount of money you spend would be entirely within your control – that if you’re scrappy enough, you can always make something work within your budget. To some extent that’s true; bigge...

Today we’re going to talk about jean shorts. “Jorts,” if you like.

In my worldview, there are next to zero circumstances where jorts are okay. I think cutoffs can look cool on women in the right setting, like on a boat whilst holding a Coors Light, or if you’re a toddler, but jorts with a hem will always and forever be dorky. Come after me, Gen-Z! 

And the worst, without a doubt, are hemmed jorts on men. Wait – scratch that – the absolute worst is cargo capri jorts on men, but my point stands.

So anyhow, with this context established, you can imagine the side-eyes that were thrown when my family and I recently boarded a ferry to Poland and saw a man in jorts. And moments later, another ma...

Sometimes we say something and mean something else entirely. I’m not talking about sarcasm or whatever you call what people do in poetry. I’m referring to those times when we’re trying to express something tough to say and hear, so we do our best to make it as inoffensive as possible. 


Like “putting lipstick on a pig.”


Despite being people whose animal brains really, really want everyone to like us, Abby and I have built a business that requires us to say this to very bright, optimistic people on a regular basis. And we hate it every time. 

Differen...

Every four months or so since college, I’ve had the same bad experience at the hair salon. I walk in, bright-eyed and ready for a change -- full Anne Hathaway pre-makeover energy. Princess Diaries OR The Devil Wears Prada -- pick your Anne. Either way, I’m ready to leave that place as red carpet Anne and… it never quite goes that way.

I’ve changed stylists and even tried to lower my expectations, but I couldn’t break the cycle.

…UNTIL I was in a brokerage kickoff call and the lightbulb went off - it’s not the stylists’ fault at all...it was mine. My results stemmed from my own preparation, or lack thereof. 

Hair styles, much like retail spaces, are subjective. Sure, there are tren...

If at any point you’ve been in a romantic relationship that lasted, let’s say, a year or more, you are surely familiar with the idea that the head-spinning early days of infatuation don’t last forever. In fact, legit scientific studies have shown that this period of “omg he’s so cuuuute chewing with his mouth open” lasts about six months.

Thanks to very real things like brains and human evolution, none of us can outsmart the chemical reactions that happen inside of us when we’re staring down the promise of new, exciting, this-is-definitely-the-thing-I’ve-been-missing love.

😑 But we all know how this story goes. After that first period of flooding dopamine, the drugs wear off, life beg...