Under the Influence with Jo Piazza Jo Piazza

If it exists in the world there is an influencer for it. And Genealogy and family research is no exception. I found Crista Cowan (The Barefoot Genealogist) while I was trying to solve my great great grandmother's murder for the Sicilian Inheritance true crime podcast and I became fascinated by how she uses her platform and her position as Ancestry's Corporate Genealogist to help people climb their family trees, but more importantly to help them shape their identities and how they move in the world.

Let's journey into a strange corner of social media filled with uncomfortably buff men chowing down on raw meat. Yes, meatfluencing is a thing. My special guest is Nick Aster, my very own husband, who I will try to convince to become a meatfluencer to put our kids through college.

There is a prevailing narrative around women and money that says women are a mess financially. It isn't true! And we are talking about that today with Her Money podcast host and personal finance guru Jean Chatzky. We dispel the myths that women aren't good with money. We talk about how to save for college and retirement and we dive into why influencers can create dangerous expectations when it comes to investing.

For a long time every novel I read or rom com that I watched contained a lady journalist, or a hard-hitting ad executive. And about two years ago all those characters became influencers. Now about every other novel I read has an influencer character and I don't know if I like it. Today I talk to the journalist and novelist Sheila Marikar about her decision to write influencers into her new book Friends in Napa. I also have a bonus conversation from the car (DRIVING IN CARS WITH JO) with Glynnis MacNicol about why she is taping her mouth shut when she sleeps. The answer has to do with Gwyneth Paltrow.

I'm touched out. I say that all the time. Before I became a parent I didn't know that was possible. But once I became a mom my body was no longer my own; it belonged to my children. But I didn't have a way to talk about the feeling of being touched out until I read the stunning book by Amanda Montei of the same name—TOUCHED OUT. There is an expectation gap between what we imagine motherhood looks like and what it actually is and the cultural script for motherhood has often been written by men.

Bestselling author Elle Cosimano (of the famed Finlay Donovan series) was miserable in her job working in real estate. Then her mother offered to care for her children for the summer and take on the physical and mental load of parenting so that Elle could try to write her own book. That moment of receiving permission to do something for herself, completely changed Elle's life and put her on the path to writing her first book, to finding an agent, to publishing a book and then many books and then hitting the bestseller lists.

And along the way Elle connected with other women who were also blowing up their lives to switch careers to become authors. Those women inspired her every single day to keep going.

This is about women lifting each other up and supporting one another unconditionally. It is about the fear and shame and guilt many of us have about doing something that seems selfish, that is for ourselves.

Elle Cosimano has inspired me so much on my own journey and I know that she is going to inspire you.