Margs and Mindset
Barlyssa have been taking on life's challenges side by side, discovering what works and what doesn't. We're not just addressing past wounds, but also picking up handy skills and strategies along the way to steer our journey forward. We're convinced that no one should have to pilot through these experiences alone. With a common objective, we pondered the most impactful way to extend out support to women of color tackling generational traumas and experiences in solitude. It turned out that launching a podcast is the best conduit to build a supportive community that engages in raw, real and open dialogues that yield authentic growth. But, add tasty margaritas and some laughs for a good time because a good laugh can overcome more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than people realize.
Episodes
142 episodes
RIP Tea Cups
The scariest sound isn’t metal on metal, it’s fragile vintage teacups crashing forward when you slam on the brakes and realize how close you just came to a real accident. We’re kicking off Friday with margaritas and a story that’s way too fresh...
From Climate to Camera with Britten Evans
A hurricane, a climate change speech, and a pink margarita might not sound like the start of a photography career, but that’s exactly where this story leads. We sit down with Britten Nicole of Britten Nicole Photography, the artist who shot our...
Aging Hits Different
Your knees crack after the gym, you blink, and your “baby” is suddenly 10. That’s the kind of emotional whiplash we’re sitting in today: the very real physical shift of aging in our 40s paired with the even bigger parenting shift of raising kid...
One Margarita Rule
Two margaritas used to be a harmless night out. Now it’s a full-body message we can’t unsee. We’re talking perimenopause, alcohol tolerance, and the moment you realize your “normal” needs a serious update. Not from shame, not from rules, but fr...
Five Years Of Making Magic
Five years ago we were just hoping a family would say yes to a party proposal we built in Canva. Now we’re celebrating a fifth business birthday with a full-blown brand shoot, a cake that made our jaws hit the floor, and the kind of gratitude t...
Vacation Shopping with Kim Della Porta
A vacation is supposed to feel like relief, not like a second job with 37 browser tabs and a dozen deadlines. We sit down with repeat guest Kim Della Porta, who made a bold career pivot from mom health coach to travel planner, and she tells the...
Big Girls Use Mic Stands Now
Mother’s Day hits different when your life has chapters you don’t want to erase. We’re sipping margaritas, adjusting to mic stands that somehow make us feel like beginners again, and then we get honest about the real mood behind the holiday: gr...
What If Success Is The Scary Part
Five years into business sounds like a celebration until someone calls your company “mature” and you realize… oh, this is the livelihood now. We’re sipping margaritas and telling the truth about what that milestone brings up: pride, pressure, g...
Ebb + Flow
A grapefruit margarita at 10:30 AM sounds like chaos until you hear the point behind it: we’ve built a life where we get to choose our mornings. That little moment turns into a bigger conversation about entrepreneurship, time freedom, and why y...
Back To Homeostasis
Eight courses will do that thing where you show up thinking you’re just going to eat, and you leave remembering who you are. We’re fresh off a North Carolina family vacation and the end of four back-to-back trips, and our bodies are begging for...
One Year All In with Aubre Fox
Getting laid off can either shrink your world or crack it wide open. We sit down with returning guest Aubre Fox exactly one year after she gets pushed into full-time entrepreneurship, and the timing is almost too perfect: the day we record, we’...
Better People
The calendar flips to spring in Rochester and suddenly it’s go time: events stack up, the pace accelerates, and every tiny crack in your business systems shows up all at once. We’re fresh off a one-day retreat called Scaling For Sustainable Suc...
Fired On Your Day Off
One Friday call. Boss, boss’s boss, HR. “Effective immediately, you no longer work here.” After 11 years in corporate America, Lyssa expects the kind of moment that wrecks your stomach and scrambles your future. Instead, a smile creeps in and t...
VIVA LAS VEGAS
Vegas didn’t blur for us. It sharpened. We came home one day removed and already know we’re not the same people who boarded that plane. No partying fog, no boozy memory gaps just full-senses, wide-awake joy, awe, and a couple of moments that hi...
Seared & Saccharum w/ Adrean Valerio
A pink-tinged marg, a splash of ginger beer, and a truth bomb: hospitality is the art of making people feel held. We sit down with Adrian of Seared and Sacrum—our go-to catering partner—to unpack how a women-led team builds unforgettable events...
We Didn't Just Meet It We Exceeded
Sun on our faces, sand in our shoes, and a whole new standard for what family time can feel like. We just came back from a resort-and-ruins whirlwind and a cruise that forced us to unplug, and we’re talking about how travel rewired our kids’ ex...
Showing Up & Showing Up
What happens when you say yes without having any idea what you said yes to and walk into a house full of strangers with nothing but a weekend bag and an open heart? We did exactly that at a women’s goddess gathering and left with something rare...
Love Dump
What if your most enduring love story began with a teacher asking a fourth-grader to be a friend? We share the arc from that first yes to a Valentine’s Day reunion in seventh grade and the 28-year bond that followed—one built on unspoken ritual...
Materializing Emotion
What if wedding planning felt like love instead of noise? We share how a simple meal prep habit with Seared and Sacrum turned into a white glove partnership that raised our bar for every touchpoint—then fueled a bold experiment: a micro wedding...
Unbecoming and Becoming w/ Sarah Napoli
A margarita, a mic, and a moment of truth: that’s where our conversation with leadership coach and community-builder Sarah Napoli really begins. Sarah opens up about the “pretzel twist” of corporate life—how chasing targets and fitting into som...
A Change You Can Make
A lifetime of vague symptoms can make you stop asking questions. When a clinician finally names the pain—painful bladder syndrome (PBS)—the relief is real and the path forward gets bright. We talk through what that moment felt like, why a diagn...
The Thirteen Magical Nights
Ready for a year that actually feels different? We open 2026 with a grounded surge of confidence, a clink of margarita glasses, and a candid look at how two weeks of family, silence, and sawdust helped us integrate life and business without los...
Happy New Year 2026
A spilled margarita and some wildly irritating under-eye patches cracked open a bigger truth: we were performing self-care while ignoring what our lives actually needed. So we started asking better questions. What do we want our day...