We’ve got a special bonus episode of season 16 for you—I’m chatting with Erin Claire Jones, author of the new book How Do You Choose?: A Human Design Guide to What’s Best for You at Work, in Love, and in Life, which came out on May 13. I am big on self-awareness, and I absolutely love learning more about myself and those I love, so I was drawn to this book after hearing Erin describe Human Design in a number of podcast interviews. She is here on the show today to chat about what Human Design is and about our Human Design type, strategy, and authority, which can be determined not through a lengthy personality test but by inputting our birthday, birth time, and birth location. The inputting to find out your type is so simple and takes under a minute to do—and I’ll link where you can do that in the show notes. A big crux of Human Design is learning how you best make decisions, hence the title of Erin’s book; we talk about the five types of Human Design on the show today (I am a Generator!), our strategy, and our authority, which is further explained in How Do You Choose?. We talk about how important it is to not just know your own type, but the types of others you love, as well; what Human Design can bring to a life; how to begin to incorporate this into our lives; and what she’d say to skeptics of all of this. Erin is a leading expert in Human Design whose work through coaching, content, and digital products exists to empower hundreds of thousands of people to overcome their biggest obstacles and find their flow at work, in love, and in life. She has spoken on stages across the world and has appeared in Forbes, Vogue, Allure, Nylon, The Sunday Times, and more. 

How Do You Choose?: A Human Design Guide to What’s Best for You at Work, in Love, and in Life by Erin Claire Jones

You can find out your Human Design blueprint at humandesignblueprint.com!

As we close season 16, I have a guest today that goes all the way back to season one of the show—well, actually, for me personally he goes back way further than that, but more on that in a moment. Dr. Sparky Reardon was one of my very first guests on season one of I’d Rather Be Reading, and I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode from 2021 if you enjoy this conversation, which I know you will. I have said this on the show before—I am originally from Kansas, and when I moved to Oxford, Mississippi to go to graduate school and work at the University of Mississippi, better known as Ole Miss, I didn’t know what to expect. Back when I was a very junior graduate assistant working in Greek life at Ole Miss, Sparky was my boss’s boss’s boss. Despite that, he was friendly, approachable, and quickly became like a father figure to me. I’m not alone. As his new book The Dean: Memoirs and Missives shows, Sparky tends to have that paternal effect on the hundreds of thousands of students he interacted with during his time as Dean of Students at Ole Miss. When it comes to Oxford and Ole Miss, Sparky is about as legendary as they come. He’s, in my mind anyway, on the level of the Mannings or any other beloved Ole Miss figure. I met Sparky in 2009, and we have kept in touch even after I moved from Oxford in 2013. We went out for brunch maybe a couple of years ago, and it was like going to brunch with a famous person for how many people came up to the table to say hello. He is like everyone’s favorite mayor, minus the politics of it all. I think you listeners will enjoy Sparky’s Southern drawl and his endless stories, many of which are captured in The Dean. I stayed up late—a rarity for me these days—and could not put this book down. Sparky is originally from Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta, if you’re not familiar; after serving at Ole Miss for years, he became Dean of Students in 2000, a position he held until his retirement in 2014. You can imagine the thousands of stories Sparky collected in that role over all of those years, from the hilarious to the tragic. He is a deeply, deeply talented writer—more than your average memoirist—and myself and so many others have been begging him to write this book for years. I am so glad it’s finally out in the world, and I’m thrilled to talk to him about it. When he’s not writing bestselling books and going on tour to support it, he enjoys his porch in Taylor, Mississippi—which is a beautiful porch, I might add—a good cigar, a sip of scotch, and the occasional poker game. You’ll love him, just like we all do.

The Dean: Memoirs and Missives by Dr. Sparky Reardon

The kickoff of college football, blessedly, is just around the corner, something I’ve been waiting for since January and the end of the last college football season. College football is jam-packed with rivalries, and one of the most heated among them is the rivalry between the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers. Both teams are located, of course, in Alabama, where I lived—Birmingham specifically—for nearly 11 years, so this is a rivalry I know well. Their annual matchup every November is called the Iron Bowl, and today on the show I have decorated sportswriter Jay Busbee here to talk about it and his new book, Iron in the Blood: How the Alabama vs. Auburn Rivalry Shaped the Soul of the South, which is out August 26. Today on the show Jay and I discuss how vicious the hatred actually is between these two teams, why the Iron Bowl is called as such, what rivalries mean to college football, the infamous Kick Six play and whether Jay thinks that is the best Iron Bowl moment of all time, what his favorite tradition is from each school—both schools are filled with traditions—and so much more. By the way, this book is a great companion piece to Netflix’s new docuseries SEC Football: Any Given Saturday, which my husband and I just binged. Jay is a senior writer for Yahoo Sports and has covered the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Masters, the World Series, the Daytona 500, the Kentucky Derby, and, you guessed it, the Iron Bowl. He hosts the travel and history show Home Turn for NASCAR Studios and has a Substack about Southern culture, “Flashlight & A Biscuit.” In addition to Iron in the Blood, Jay has written the book Earnhardt Nation, a biography of NASCAR’s Earnhardt family, and, according to his biography, he “worships at the church of SEC football.” He has written everywhere from ⁠ESPN.com⁠ to Esquire, USA Today, The Washington Post, and more.

⁠Iron in the Blood: How the Alabama vs. Auburn Rivalry Shaped the Soul of the South⁠ by Jay Busbee

We’ve got a great episode for you today with Scott Ellsworth about his new book Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America, which is out July 15. I told Scott in today’s episode that the subtitle alone sounds like three books—he covers so much ground here, and it’s written in such a narrative format that you will just gobble this book about history up. I am personally partial to history—it’s always been my favorite subject—but even if that’s not you, the way that Scott writes is so gripping and compelling, you honestly won’t want to put the book down. This book is about the last year of the Civil War and is a new account of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; we go deep into the stories of figures, like Lincoln, that you know from the Civil War era, but also those you have maybe never heard of, like the female war correspondent Lois Adams. The cast of characters is enormous and fascinating. You’ll likely also walk away looking at Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth differently—and how Lincoln’s assassination was bigger than just one lone actor. The book opens with the deeply powerful line “This is a book about how we almost lost our country,” and it takes us through the story in acts—which I admit I’ve never seen before in a book, and I loved. This is a myth-shattering book written by New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth, who is also the author of The Secret Game, The Ground Breaking, Death in a Promised Land, and The World Beneath Their Feet, and he’s a former Smithsonian Institution historian who has written about American history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. In addition to writing great historical works, he also teaches at the University of Michigan, and he’s a totally great person.

Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America by Scott Ellsworth

Happy July—so excited to be back with you to talk about one of my favorite books I’ve read lately, Dr. Michael Norton’s The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, which came out April 9, 2024. We have talked at length about habits on the show, but today, ritual gets its due. Dr. Norton explains what ritual is, and how, in his words, ritual can shift our lives from black and white to Technicolor. We talk about the power of ritual, what the difference is between habit and ritual, how ritual can change us and help us find the more we are seeking (again, in Dr. Norton’s words), how rituals emerge in the first place, if there is such a thing as a bad ritual, and if a person can overdo rituals or have too many rituals. We talk about everything from rituals in marriage—definitely pay attention to the clinking forks story—to ritual in grief, and how he’s felt about the overwhelmingly positive response to the book since it came out over a year ago. Dr. Norton is a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School; he is a longtime expert on human behavior, and he has also co-authored with Elizabeth Dunn Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. His TEDx talk, “How to Buy Happiness,” has been viewed nearly 4.5 million times, and you may have seen his work in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Scientific American, and numerous other outlets from print to television, radio, and podcast. We’re certainly happy to have him on this podcast. 

The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions by Dr. Michael Norton

We’ve got such a fun one for you today—we’re chatting with Nora Princiotti about her new book Hit Girls: Britney, Taylor, Beyonce, and the Women Who Built Pop’s Shiniest Decade, which comes out on June 17. This book is being billed—rightfully so—as “the ultimate love letter to pop music,” and in this book Nora takes us on a deep dive into how female pop stars broke through the music industry in the 2000s and changed the game forever. Nora covers so many women in this book—Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry—and that’s just for starters. She talks about how these women redefined the role of the pop star, not only within the music industry, but within culture, more broadly. Nora writes that “the aughts were a harrowing but magical time in music for women,” and she tells us all about why in today’s episode. Nora is a staff writer at The Ringer, where she covers culture—everything from Taylor Swift to the NFL. Speaking of the NFL, Nora was previously a reporter for The Boston Globe, where she covered the New England Patriots dynasty. Nora currently co-hosts the Every Single Album podcast, which just hosted Miley Cyrus—so covering female artists is a specialty of hers. She writes in Hit Girls that, “though the aughts were over, they certainly left a mark.” We’re going to dig into what that mark is right now.

Hit Girls: Britney, Taylor, Beyonce, and the Women Who Built Pop’s Shiniest Decade by Nora Princiotti

So excited to be back with you and our guest today, Megan Hellerer, author of Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life, which came out last September 24. In this book, Megan introduces us to the concept of the underfulfilled overachiever—and I bet there are many of you listening, like myself, who will completely resonate with that term. Underfulfilled overachievers, Megan writes, have been taught the concept of destinational living—but through her book, as the title suggests, Megan is introducing a new way forward, a more fulfilling way forward: directional living. Of course, Megan talks all about what that means in today’s episode, and why this is the better way. We talk about how to begin this paradigm shift and the five phases it takes to do so; what a “fulfillment ache” is; the difference between a fear self and a true self; and so much more. Megan is a career coach and the founder of the appropriately named Coaching for Underfulfilled Overachievers. She has worked with hundreds to transform their lives by transforming their careers, and she is a Stanford graduate, a former Google executive, and sees her mission and purpose now to provide others with the support and guidance that she needed when she was struggling. She has been featured everywhere from Vogue to The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, New York, and The Times, and I’m really excited for you to meet her.

Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life by Megan Hellerer

One of the most popular books of 2025 so far is Dr. Judith Joseph’s High Functioning: Overcome Your Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy, which introduces us to the concept of High Functioning Depression—where you may look fine on the outside but don’t feel fine on the inside. When people think of depression, they most likely think of “can’t get out of bed” depression—but what about the lesser-known side of depression, the one that mostly stays hidden? If you are going through a time in your life where everything feels off, if you’re struggling to find joy in happy moments, if you’re walking around feeling numb, if you feel restless when you aren’t busy or empty when you’re sitting still—this book and this conversation might be for you. Today, Dr. Joseph and I talk about anhedonia—a word I had never heard of before she introduced me to it—and her five Vs, which are the crux of the book: validation, venting, values, vitals, and vision. The five Vs are our way out of High Functioning Depression, which I call HFD throughout the episode. Dr. Joseph talks about how trauma plays into HFD and so much more—it’s such a rich conversation. Dr. Joseph is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and researcher who specializes in mental health and trauma. She is the founder and chief investigator at Manhattan Behavioral Medicine, New York City’s premier clinical research site, a clinical assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU’s medical center, and chairwoman of the Women in Medicine Board at Columbia. She’s extremely popular on social media and holds an undergraduate degree from Duke as well as a medical doctorate and a master’s in business administration from Columbia. All of this, and the one and only Mel Robbins wrote the foreward for this book—further proof that it’s such an important read.

High Functioning: Overcome Your Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy by Dr. Judith Joseph

Today on the show I’m thrilled to have Sophie Gilbert, author of Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, which came out April 29. This book looks specifically at the late 1990s and early 2000s—when both Sophie and I were coming of age—as an inflection point, when the energy of feminism collapsed and regressed into a period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. This book examines the era across movies, music, fashion, television, tabloid journalism, the ever-present paparazzi and more and paints a picture of a vicious attack against women in the spotlight and damaging trickle down effects for those who weren’t. Not shockingly, what happened in the early 21st century still has consequences today, and Sophie and I are digging into it. We talk about a great many things in this episode, and I want to fill you in on a bit about Sophie: she is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she writes about books, television, and pop culture. She is the winner of the 2024 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. Girl on Girl follows 2023’s book of essays, On Womanhood: Bodies, Literature, Choice, and I’m excited for you to hear from her and all she has to say. 

Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert

I am thrilled to have Amina AlTai here with me today to talk about her new book The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living, which is out May 13. Here’s what I love about this book, among many things, honestly—it is billed as “the anti-hustle guide to getting what you really want,” and it delivers. If you are experiencing or have experienced burnout, overwork, and stress when it comes to your ambition, then this book is for you. This book helps us escape the ambition trap—and don’t worry, Amina tells us in this episode what that is—and step instead into joy-filled work. This is such a great book and a great conversation! She has taught me that we can be ambitious and not sacrifice ourselves in the process. Hallelujah! It turns out that maybe we’re not looking for money or status but really acceptance and belonging. I know I’ve outsourced my self-worth externally for a great many years, and spoiler alert—that doesn’t work. If you, like me, are ready to reconcile your ambition, let’s heal our core wounds and get to the other side together, escaping the ambition trap once and for all. Today Amina and I talk about why ambition is complicated, especially for historically excluded people; how ambition is not up and to the right and isn’t a linear journey; why being an ambitious woman is somehow still not acceptable, even in 2025; the difference between painful ambition and purposeful ambition; how hustle culture became so pervasive, anyway; what the resentment line is—trust me, you’ll want to know all about that; and what healthy ambition looks like and a microstep we can take even as soon as today to get there. Amina is an executive coach, leadership trainer, and chronic illness advocate that has been featured everywhere from The New York Times to NBC, CBS, Forbes, and more. She’s an expert-in-residence at Entrepreneur Magazine and was named one of Success Magazine’s Women of Influence, and she’s partnered with companies like Google, Snap, Roku, and Outdoor Voices. I not only enjoyed this conversation, but I deeply appreciated it.

The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living by Amina AlTai

Once again, we don’t often have fiction picks on I’d Rather Be Reading, but usually every year I leave you with a fiction book of the summer around this time of year—and here is one for you: Hotter in the Hamptons by none other than Tinx, who is my esteemed guest today! In case you’re in the 1 percent of the population who isn’t familiar with Tinx, she is an influencer that has become known as “TikTok’s older sister” because of her advice about relationships and mental health. Her name is Christina Najjar, and her content focuses on celebrity commentary, dating advice, and so-called “starter packs for rich moms.” She attended Stanford and Parsons School of Design, and she too is a podcaster, hosting the It’s Me, Tinx podcast. She has written a nonfiction book that came out in 2023 called The Shift: Change Your Perspective, Not Yourself, which tackles topics like self-confidence, friendships, dating, and more; now she’s got a novel, Hotter in the Hamptons, coming out May 6, and it is as juicy as it gets. Tinx is already a New York Times bestselling author from her first book, and I fully expect her to become one again with Hotter in the Hamptons. There’s so much in the book that is compelling—love, sex, friendship, fashion, influencer culture, the Hamptons—it’s difficult for me to cover fiction because I just want to give it all away, but I refuse to do that. I found Tinx to be absolutely lovely; her calming, soothing voice will instantly relax you. I hope you enjoy this conversation and this book. Take a listen!

Hotter in the Hamptons by Tinx

Today we are talking about a topic that will resonate with each and every one of you—waiting. Every last one of us has walked through a waiting season at some point in our lives, and I bet that most, if not all, of us are waiting on something to happen for them right now. Be it a marriage, a child, a job, a home, on and on and on, it’s not so much that life is made up of waiting seasons, but life is one big wait. The question becomes—how will we live in the wait? How can we be happy even when we’re waiting on a deeply held dream to come to pass? Today on the show we have the dynamic DawnCheré Wilkerson for a faith-filled conversation about her new book Slow Burn: The Work and Wonder of the Wait, which is out April 29. Today we talk about why humans don’t instinctively wait well; how to live well while we wait; how our waits can transform us and allow God to shape us into the people we were called to be; what her waiting has taught her; and what she’d say to someone—maybe you—in the darkest corner of their wait. DawnCheré is a speaker, singer, songwriter, author, and pastor who has also struggled with infertility, which she beautifully opens up about in the book and this conversation. Spoiler alert—they now have four children, the youngest of which was born just as this book was about to come out! DawnCheré is the wife of Pastor Rich Wilkerson, and together they’ve built a ministry, VOUS Church, that brings so many people closer to God in Miami. We talk about her faith today, and it is such a blessing to see the Lord working through DawnCheré’s powerful story. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place, and in this episode.

Slow Burn: The Work and Wonder of the Wait by DawnCheré Wilkerson

Today on the show we’re talking about the beauty of staying put, and we’re talking with Annie B. Jones, author of the new book Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put, which comes out April 22. Annie is a podcaster herself—her books podcast, From the Front Porch, is a huge hit—and she is the owner of The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia, one of the most well-respected bookstores in the U.S. Annie writes in Ordinary Time that she had dreams of moving to New York City, but instead stayed put, planting roots in the small town of Thomasville. This book combats the notion that one has to have a “loud” life to make a difference, and argues we don’t always have to leave the lives we have to live the lives we’ve dreamed of. Annie describes herself in the book’s very first line as “someone who stays” and, as she writes, “I have not lived the adventurous life I envisioned for myself as a teenager; I have, against all odds and dreams to the contrary, chosen to stay, and in the staying, I believe there is a story to tell.” Maybe you, too, are someone who stayed—as Annie writes in Ordinary Time, among young adults, 80 percent live within 100 miles of their hometown. But it’s not just about staying put in a geographic location: it’s about staying put in a job, in a marriage, in a faith. Annie and I talk about so much in this episode, including our shared love for books; she also tells me what she’d tell the younger version of herself, and so much more. Sometimes, it turns out, staying put can bring forth a life better than you ever imagined. Annie is a writer, a podcaster, and a bookstore owner whose work has been featured in Southern Living. She lives in Thomasville with her husband Jordan and their dog, Sam Malone, and she has quite the story to tell. 

Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put by Annie B. Jones

I am delighted to have on the show today Chris Guillebeau, here to talk about his latest, Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live, which is out April 15. You may know Chris from his popular newsletter “A Year of Mental Health” or for his books, including 2010’s The Art of Non-Conformity, 2012’s The $100 Startup, 2014’s The Happiness of Pursuit, 2016’s Born for This, 2017’s Side Hustle, and 2023’s Gonzo Capitalism. In Time Anxiety, Chris examines our relationship with the clock, and in our conversation today defines time anxiety; tells us what a cognitive distortion is, including time blindness; how to cultivate a healthier relationship with time; how many of us have bought into the “magical thinking of time management”; how staying busy might be a way of staying avoidant; how our perception of time changes as we age; how a light schedule can be more psychologically challenging than a full one; and so much more. I learned so much from this book and this conversation. Take a listen!

Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live by Chris Guillebeau

Whether you are decidedly a Swiftie or decidedly not, I promise you’re going to get something out of this conversation. It’s hard to believe that we’ve never, to my knowledge, spoken about Taylor Swift in her own episode in the nearly four years and 300-plus episodes of I’d Rather Be Reading, but now, she gets her due. Here today I have Kevin Evers, a senior editor at the Harvard Business Review who has written the brilliant book There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, which comes out April 8. We look at Taylor today from many perspectives—a business perspective; a music perspective; and a personal perspective, focusing on her Eras Tour, which wrapped last year, and its impact; her fan-centric approach; and her drive, determination, and vision. Kevin and I talk about why Taylor decided to go the pop music route after her country music beginnings; what “that” moment with Kanye West at the 2009 VMAs did to her career, and to her personally; where she is most in her element—as a singer, a songwriter, and a performer; and what gives Taylor the “it” factor that has catapulted her to unparalleled levels of fame. We also talk about Taylor’s long-term strategy; her moment of backlash and how she rose up from it; and what her most strategic business decision is. We also talk about her legacy, although, at 35, her story is most definitely still being written. Here to walk us through it all is Kevin Evers, who, as previously mentioned, is a senior editor at the Harvard Business Review. He has edited bestselling and award-winning books on high performance, creativity, innovation, marketing, strategy, and digital disruption, and he has written popular articles on Hollywood blockbusters, brain science, the unpredictability of success, and the art of persuasion, among others. He is fantastic, and I can’t wait for you to hear what he has to say.

There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift by Kevin Evers

We are in for such a fun conversation today with Dr. Morgan Cutlip, author of A Better Share: How Couples Can Tackle the Mental Load for More Fun, Less Resentment, and Great Sex, which is out April 8. In today's episode, Morgan teaches us why understanding the mental load is so important to a successful partnership. She teaches us that the mental load is comprised of three parts—physical, cognitive, and emotional, and we talk about that, as well as the cycle of unmet needs, the PAR acronym and what it means for both men and women, and what the death spiral is in a relationship. We also talk about what the default partner versus the non-default partner means as far as ownership of a task, and so much more from this great book. Morgan calls herself a “lifelong lover of all things relationship,” and she has worked in the field of relationship education for over 15 years alongside her dad, Dr. John Van Epp, who is the founder of Love Thinks and the developer of multiple relationship education courses that have been taught to over one million people worldwide. Morgan is also the author of the 2023 book Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself: 5 Steps to Banish Guilt and Beat Burnout When You Already Have Too Much to Do, and she earned a master’s degree in human development and family science and a doctorate in counseling psychology. She’s also just so easy to talk to and so much fun. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed having this conversation.

A Better Share: How Couples Can Tackle the Mental Load for More Fun, Less Resentment, and Great Sex by Dr. Morgan Cutlip

As our guest today, Dr. Caroline Fleck, writes in her new book Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life—which came out February 18—validation is psychology’s best kept secret. What is validation, anyway, and why does it matter? Caroline and I dig into all of it, including the power of validation, and why Caroline considers it a superpower. Practicing validation can lead to improvement in five important categories across one’s life, Caroline says: improved relationships, decreased conflict, increased influence, increased ability to drive behavioral change, and increased self-compassion. (Um, yes please.) We also talk today about what validation isn’t, and go through the ladder of validation—its eight rungs and three sections. We then put validation into practice, giving examples of what it looks like with ourselves, with our kids, within an intimate relationship, and in the workplace. This really is psychology’s best kept secret, and I’m so glad it doesn’t have to be hidden under cover anymore because of Caroline’s book. Dr. Caroline Fleck is a licensed psychologist, corporate consultant, and adjunct clinical instructor at Stanford. She is a graduate of Michigan and Duke and has served as a supervisor and consultant for some of the most rigorous clinical training programs across the U.S. A respected voice in psychology, she’s been featured in The New York Times, on Good Morning America, and in HuffPost, and in her private practice, she works with adults, adolescents, and couples, specializing in dialectical behavior therapy, otherwise known as DBT, and other cognitive behavioral treatments. Her corporate work strengthens company culture and individual performance, and she not only implements training programs to Fortune 500 companies but also provides executive coaching to industry leaders worldwide. She’s got a great message to share.

Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life by Dr. Caroline Fleck

I have spoken before on the show about my absolute love and admiration for the one and only Nora Ephron, who is the reason why I am a writer. I have met my match in today’s guest, Ilana Kaplan, who I previously worked with at People, who is absolutely fantastic, and who has written this gem of a book about our shared heroine called Nora Ephron at the Movies: A Visual Celebration of the Writer and Director Behind When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and More, which came out last October 29. The words are beautiful, but it is a visually stunning book as well—one your coffee table absolutely needs. Today Ilana and I talk about the life, work, and legacy of Nora, who died far, far too soon at age 71 in 2012. And when I say I’ve met my match when it comes to being a Nora fan in Ilana, I mean it—she even had Nora in her wedding vows, which not even I can say I did. Among so much else, Ilana and I talk today about Nora’s rom-com trio: When Harry Met Sally (which is my favorite movie of all time), Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail—and Ilana shocks me with a revelation about how one of those movies is actually meant to be a sequel of the other. We talk about Nora’s successes in film, but also her failures, and which of Nora’s movies Ilana thinks are underrated. Nora was a writer, a director, a playwright—we talk about her legacy and how her fingerprints are still felt, even 13 years after her death. Ilana is a writer and culture editor whose work has been everywhere from the aforementioned People to PAPER, The Independent, The New York Times, New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, NPR, Pitchfork, Variety, Billboard, and more. She’s totally compelling, and I can’t wait for you to hear from her.

Nora Ephron at the Movies: A Visual Celebration of the Writer and Director Behind When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and More by Ilana Kaplan

Today on the show we’ve got Jenny Wood discussing her new book Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It, which hits shelves on March 25. In the book, Jenny writes about how courage is essential to our success, and how, in her words, “Wild courage will change your life.” She explains to us what wild courage is, anyway; how to look fear in the eye and do it—whatever it is to you—scared; the four-step goal setting practice of rock, chalk, talk, and walk; and in one of the most fascinating parts of the book to me, Jenny takes nine traits that aren’t necessarily associated with courage and reframed them for wild courage. You’ll see what I mean when you read the book and listen to the episode. Jenny tells us about her absolutely wild love story—which was featured in The New York Times—and Jenny really is just incredibly fascinating: she is a tap dancer, an FAA-licensed private pilot, and a zucchini bread connoisseur, in her words. She describes herself in her bio as an “Unstoppable confidence booster,” and was a top executive at Google and is the founder of Own Your Career, one of the largest career development programs in Google’s history. Jenny’s work is dedicated to helping people make their impossible dreams happen, and she is a speaker, writer, mom, and, while at Google, ran a large operations team that helped drive tens of billions of revenue per year. Her writing has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes. Take a listen to our conversation!

Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It by Jenny Wood

Our guest today, Brad Meltzer, is one of the busiest people in book writing. It’s only March, and already he’s had two books come out in 2025 alone: The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy—and Why It Failed, written with his friend Josh Mensch and released January 14, and Make Magic: The Book of Inspiration You Didn’t Know You Needed, which came out March 4. Today on the show we talk about both books with Brad—and they’re very different. In The JFK Conspiracy, we learn about a plot against John F. Kennedy’s life a full three years before 1963 and Dallas. The almost assassination happened in December 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida, after Kennedy had been elected to the presidency but before he’d been sworn in. I’ll leave it to the episode to explain the gritty details, but what’s interesting is that the book dives into Jackie Kennedy with as much gusto as it does JFK. It’s a fantastic read. Then we have Make Magic, which was birthed from the text of a speech Brad gave at the University of Michigan’s commencement last May, when none other than his son was one of the graduates. Brad, too, graduated from Michigan, and the book is in Michigan’s colors and the text is extremely substantive, especially when he goes into kindness and empathy. The books are very different, but I enjoyed them both immensely, and I can’t wait for you to hear about them. By the way—just want to throw this in here—The JFK Conspiracy and Make Magic were both instant New York Times bestsellers. Brad is such a likeable guy. He’s a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author and has written so many books, perhaps evidenced by the fact that he wrote two books already in 2025 alone. If that’s not enough, he’s also the host of the History Channel shows Brad Meltzer’s Decoded and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, which he used to help find the missing September 11, 2001 flag that the firefighters raised at Ground Zero on that awful day. Brad has written across so many genres—novels to nonfiction books to comic books to children’s books. I know you’re going to love this conversation.

The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy—and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer

Make Magic: The Book of Inspiration You Didn’t Know You Needed by Brad Meltzer