The news broke me. The murder shows stopped working. So I watched a month of college basketball I do not care about, and it was the only thing keeping my nervous system upright.

In this episode I'm unpacking three things:

→ Why "distraction" is an actual mental health strategy, and why sportsball was the weirdly perfect antidote to doomscrolling.

→ A very clear message for anyone whose job is chewing them up: You are an asset, not a liability. Burnout culture is not only cruel, it's bad business. The math on replacing good employees is brutal, and your workplace being too short-sighted to see that has nothing to do with your value.

→ Small Talk Frank from Scranton wants to know why he can't relax into stability.

If you needed to hear "this isn't you, it's them" today — hi, it's them.

00:00 Cold open: You are an asset, not a liability

00:38 Hi, I'm L2 — welcome back to Different, Not Broken

01:05 Why I always have something on in the background (blame childhood chaos)

02:04 When the murder shows stopped working

03:00 The news broke me

03:43 Basketball as my zero-stakes sanity reset

04:48 Accidentally Pavlov'd by March Madness

05:54 The women's games are better, argue with the wall

06:35 Gratitude for dumb distractions

08:12 Workplaces are getting worse (and it's bad business)

08:54 The actual math on turnover and institutional knowledge

09:37 Short-term thinking is stealing your future

10:13 "It's not personal, it's just business" is an excuse

11:16 You are an asset, not a liability

12:26 You are not the problem for having boundaries

13:32 AI outsourcing and the coming pay cut

14:10 You deserve safety, accommodations, and a workplace built for humans

14:59 Small Talk with Alison: a question from Frank in Scranton

15:13 Hypervigilance, trauma, or just being realistic?

16:09 Why I can't let myself get excited about good things

16:44 Chaotic families and why I hate my birthday

17:45 Two trophies and a dead dog (and then, open-heart surgery)

18:42 Some of us are just wired this way

19:31 When it might be time to talk to a professional

20:22 Olympics tangent: how does anyone end up doing the luge?

• Got a question for Small Talk? Send it in: https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/voicemail

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Writing Course

We're back. I put on makeup today. Seriously, that's where we are right now.

I took a break — a self-imposed silent hiatus you probably didn't know about, because I had a backlog and I'm nothing if not someone who runs her mouth into a microphone first and asks questions later. But the break is over, and I was not ready to come back today. I was very, very not ready.

And yet here we are, because I can do things scared, and apparently that includes walking downstairs and getting in front of the microphone when all I wanted was my best friend. (My kids confirmed my best friend is my bed. They weren't wrong.)

In this episode, I'm talking about:

— Odin, my 175-pound Great Dane who has exactly one person in this house and it is not me. Until he got scared. Then it was very much me.

— A listener question from Talia in Berkeley about how you grieve versions of yourself you never got to become — the careers, the relationships, the risks you didn't take.

— My dad's passing in 2016 and what happened in the four months after: every service line that was paying our business's bills disappeared. Every. Single. One. The universe was done with that chapter before I was.

This episode is 18 minutes. It's also a little unplanned, a little raw, and exactly what it needs to be. Come back with me.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — War Paint On: We're Back (Armed with Makeup)

01:30 — What Counts as a Break When Your Brain Never Stops

02:09 — Content Brain Doesn't Take Vacations

02:50 — I Was Not Ready (But Here Anyway)

05:44 — Odin the 175-Pound Great Dane Who Only Loves Me in Crisis

09:02 — I'm the Safe Parent, Apparently

09:55 — What It's Actually Like Having Giant Dogs

12:24 — Small Talk: Grieving the Life You Didn't Live

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I'll just say it: don't send me a video.

Not because I'm technologically challenged — I literally make video content for a living — but because if I need information fast, I need it in a format I can actually consume. Scrollable. Skimmable. Mine to move through in the order my brain needs. Send me a video and you have just given me homework, and I am not paying you to give me homework.

That's the rant that opens this episode, and I stand by every word of it.

But then we get into something that I think matters even more. I'm sitting down with Joanna Strober, the CEO of Midi Health — a women-focused healthcare company doing what the standard system has historically refused to do: actually start with women's biology instead of working around it. Joanna spent years watching herself and women like her get handed SSRIs and sleep studies when what they actually needed was someone to check their hormone levels. So she built the company that does that. Insurance covered. All 50 states. Actually available.

We talk about perimenopause, the diagnostic desert most women wander through on their own, what it actually takes to build a healthcare company that investors have no existing pattern for, and why AI might finally be the thing that cuts through the prior authorization bureaucracy that is eating your doctor's time alive.

Then Alison is back for Small Talk with a question from Omar in Dearborn, Michigan, about how to ask for help when even the ask feels overwhelming — and why needing help is never the failure it feels like.

If this one lands for you, share it with someone who could use it. Leave a review.

Different, Not Broken is hosted by Lauren Howard. New episodes drop weekly.

In this episode, I talk about what it actually looks like when you prioritize people-first leadership — not the inspirational poster version, but the version where you're paying someone's salary while they're out sick, covering their workload yourself, and looking at your bank account like it personally offended you.

I share two real stories — one from a friend, one from inside my own company — about what happens when you commit to putting humans first, and applying compassionate leadership, even when the business case doesn't make immediate sense.

What happens to the employee who needed care she could actually afford.

What happens to the friend who finally called back to say... well, you'll have to listen to find out what he said.

The suck is temporary. The loyalty isn't. This episode is for anyone building something — a business, a team, a life — who's in the middle of the hard part right now.

Plus: Allison brings a question from Becca about replaying conversations at 2am and whether that's anxiety, rumination, or just your brain refusing to behave.

⏱ Timestamps

• 00:00 — Intro & the friend who never calls
• 02:31 — What people-first leadership actually costs
• 06:25 — This is temporary. I promise.
• 09:51 — The reward is real. I just can't tell you when.
• 11:03 — He called back. He saw it.
• 13:07 — The employee story. The health insurance bill. The reason.
• 19:52 — Oh. That's why.
• 20:33 — What you get on the other side of the suck
• 23:13 — Small Talk: replaying conversations at 2am

Mentioned in this episode:

Build Your Better course

Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better

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My mom was in the hospital. ICU-level hospital. I knew she was going to be fine — but I also hadn't slept, and I was running on that specific kind of fuel that is equal parts functional and completely frayed.

I had a lot of feelings. I did not share most of them. Instead, I asked her the question that actually mattered: how charged is your phone?

This episode is about what happens when the people who raised us start needing us to show up — and how that experience is mostly logistical problem-solving interrupted by moments of genuine, unhinged absurdity. My mom had three separate envelopes of cash stuffed into various corners of her purse. She also had a small pouch of Equal packets. She let me take all the cash. She did not let me take the Equal. Barely ambulatory. Still ready to fight about artificial sweetener.

I also robbed my 9-year-old's piggy bank for a valet tip. Her grandmother paid her back. I stayed out of that transaction entirely.

Alison brings a question from Josh and Casey Mo, who feel like they're either all in or completely checked out — no middle gear — and it's starting to affect their relationships. I have thoughts. Mostly: please go talk to a clinician.

Also in this episode: my husband's vacuum cleaner obsession, the Oscars, Conan O'Brien with a leaf blower, and the universe conspiring to put that exact sound directly into my AirPods at the worst possible moment.

"You can take my money. You cannot take my Equal."

Timestamps:

00:22 — My husband and his four vacuum cleaners

01:51 — The Oscars / sensory nightmare of the week

02:55 — Where did your parents keep the used twist ties?

04:42 — My mom was hospitalized (ICU, kidney transplant, all of it)

07:50 — The only question that matters: how charged is your phone?

08:53 — Purse archaeology: hard candies, cash pouches, and the Equal situation

13:12 — Small Talk: all in or completely checked out, no middle gear

Different, Not Broken is hosted by Lauren Howard. New episodes drop weekly.

Mentioned in this episode:

Inflow

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GetInflow

Our episode sponsor is Inflow. Please support this show and check them out at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

Inflow

In this episode which is sponsored by our wonderful partners at Inflow , I have a bone to pick with everyone who has ever bought me a coloring book. I know you meant well. I know you love me. I know you saw "mindless activity" and thought of me. But I need you to understand something: there is nothing in this world more stressful than being handed a mandala and a box of markers and being told to relax. Nothing.

Hi, I'm Lauren Howard and my friends call me L2.

Over the coming 20 minutes, I'll be walking through exactly why coloring books are a form of psychological warfare for my brain — the wrong colors, the spacing, the seven shades of gray problem, the blank page that is just failure waiting to happen — and what actually works for me instead. (Paint by number. With the paint pots included. Do not hand me a paint by number without the paint pots.)

I also tell the story behind why I sign off every single conversation — phone call, Zoom, hallway chat — the same exact way. Every time. Have for a decade. Started in a substance use clinic, where "be good" was less a pleasantry and more a genuinely urgent request. One patient called me out the one time I forgot. I didn't realize how much it had followed me until then.

Alison brings us a question from Simone in Oakland, California, who is frustrated by the advice to "listen to your body" because her body keeps sending contradictory signals — tired but wired, hungry but nauseous. I get into why that advice is genuinely incomplete, what those crossed signals actually mean, and when they're a sign something bigger needs attention.

"A blank coloring page is just a sheet of failure. Everything I do from here on out is going to be wrong. Get that thing away from me."

Be good.

Again, please do check out our episode sponsors Inflow at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

Chapters:

For use in podcast players and YouTube.

1. 00:00 — Coloring book dread (the visceral reaction)
2. 00:44 — Why people keep buying them (they mean well)
3. 01:47 — Please stop buying me coloring books
4. 02:30 — Mandalas, marker boxes, and wrong color panic
5. 04:03 — The Golden Girls color-by-number disaster
6. 05:17 — Paint by number: the acceptable alternative
7. 05:22 — You're allowed to make ugly art
8. 05:58 — Decision fatigue and the two-item menu
9. 06:46 — The blank page nightmare (live in my living room)
10. 07:53 — Where 'be good' actually came from
11. 08:53 — The substance use clinic years
12. 09:21 — The patient who called me out
13. 10:57 — What 'be good' means now
14. 12:38 — Small Talk with Alison
15. 12:43 — Simone in Oakland: mixed signals from her body
16. 13:05 — When 'listen to your body' is incomplete advice
17. 16:42 — Dad's sign-off (and how I apparently inherited this)

Mentioned in this episode:

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Inflow

GetInflow

Our episode sponsor is Inflow. Please support this show and check them out at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

Inflow

In this episode which is sponsored by our wonderful partners at Inflow I'm sharing an update from a couple of weeks ago when my mom was sick and I called an ambulance. She was going to be fine. I knew she was going to be fine. I was calm. I was functional. I was on the phone with my business partner — who is also an ER doctor, which I have decided is a mandatory qualification for that role — while flagging down the paramedics from the front porch.

And then I walked outside and completely fell apart.

Not because I was scared for her. Because that was the same porch. The same hallway. The same room I'd stood in nine and a half years ago when I called an ambulance for my dad — and he did not come home.

My brain knew it was 2026. My body had not received that information.

This episode is about the part of grief nobody prepares you for — not the raw early days, but the decade-later ambush that catches you completely off guard on a random Tuesday night with zero warning and zero time to put the armor on. It's also about how two things can be absolutely true at once: you can be fully mid-trauma response and still be making sarcastic remarks at the paramedics. I did both. Simultaneously. I regret nothing.

Alison brings a question from Andrew in Eugene, Oregon: "I'm starting to wonder how much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked on top of each other. Is there a real me underneath that, or is that the wrong question entirely?" Andrew, I've been thinking about this all week.

And I sit down with Lauren Yerkes, founder of Post Swim, who built a swimwear brand from her own breast cancer diagnosis at 37 — because she wanted to feel like herself again in a bathing suit, and that thing did not exist yet. Lauren's take on coverage vs. hiding is one of the most nuanced things I've heard in a long time.

"My brain knew it was 2026. My nervous system had entirely different information. Grief is a Mack truck with no warning label and no timeline."

Post Swim: postswim.com | @postswimofficial

Again, please do check out our episode sponsors Inflow at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

They're helping us bring episodes like this one to your ears.

Mentioned in this episode:

GetInflow

Our episode sponsor is Inflow. Please support this show and check them out at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

Inflow

Inflow

In this episode which is sponsored by our wonderful partners at Inflow I'm going on the record about something extremely important: loud music makes food taste bad, and I will not be taking questions or feedback on this. I support your live music. I will not consume it while eating my French fries. These are two separate things.

I also have a feelings-based relationship with computer keyboards that started in approximately 1994 in a Radio Shack, has never ended, and apparently runs in the family.

We also get into a question from Kayla in Tallahassee that stopped me: when I finally slow down, everything I've been avoiding emotionally shows up at once.

Rest feels dangerous. I have thoughts on this — including the uncomfortable truth that you cannot outrun trauma, it is always there, and you are not smarter than it.

(Neither am I. Trust me.)

Plus I read a listener review that is basically the entire reason this show exists.

1. The sensory case against restaurant live music
2. Keyboard switches, lifelong fixations, and the difference between that and a hyperfixation
3. When your kid inherits the trait you didn't mean to pass on
4. Listener Q: why does rest feel like an ambush?
5. You can't outrun what you haven't processed

Again, please do check out our episode sponsors Inflow at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

They're helping us bring episodes like this one to your ears.

Mentioned in this episode:

GetInflow

Our episode sponsor is Inflow. Please support this show and check them out at http://getinflow.io/notbroken

Inflow

Inflow

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