The Lauren Widrick Podcast

Lauren Widrick

A podcast for millennial women balancing work, kids, ambition, reinvention, hormone plot twists, big travel plans, and the sneaking suspicion you’re capable of way more. Equal parts reality check and bestie in your pocket, here to help you stop talking about the dream and actually activate it.

  1. 1d ago

    When is it time to quit your business and go back to Corporate America?

    Entrepreneurship is HARD AF. So...how do you know if you should keep riding the roller coaster or get off? Should you push through or walk away? The best way I can answer this for you is through my own story. This is super-freaking-vulnerable and I spare no detail about what happened. I truly hope this helps you. Episode Highlights: 🚨 I turned a Hail Mary conference into a sign from the universe, a ski trip panic attack, a flu four days before showtime, and a stolen phone from a Charlotte street into the most clarifying moment of my entrepreneurial life. 💸 I was making "great revenue" while secretly bringing home a teacher's salary. My husband did the math. I did not want him to do the math. 🗣️ The squad went from $750 to $269 a month and almost nobody bought it. A member told me I had just devalued my own product in front of everyone. She was not wrong. ✝️ I walked into a church for the first time and had a genuine come-to-Jesus moment (literally) on the side of the highway. I cried an ugly cry. Multiple times. On this episode. 📋 I took a contract project manager job, called it a "soft place to land," and it turned out to be exactly what I needed to name a number so ridiculous it felt like a joke. 🎙️ If your business feels spiritually broken (not just hard), this episode is your permission slip. And if you want to talk it through, my DMs are open. 📩 Want more of this unfiltered realness twice a month? Sign up for my newsletter at laurenwidrick.com. Your life is not fixed and permanent. You can go back, pivot, leave, return, and do all of it on your own terms. You will not die.

    25 min
  2. May 21

    Hey...do you want to hang out IRL? I'm serious.

    I had an incredible night that also broke my brain a little. Sometimes the best nights are the ones that leave you questioning everything. 🎤 Went to a Charlotte Entrepreneurs event on a whim and almost talked myself out of going. 🎭 My friend Brian LaFontaine (yes, you've seen him on Ozark) taught us improv skills to actually listen to people instead of just waiting for our turn to talk. 😬 When someone asked what my business was, I froze, babbled something about "a little podcast I do from my car," and could feel myself radiating shame in real time. 🐉 Turns out I described my former business as "an eight-headed monster" to approximately four strangers that night, which is both accurate and kind of horrifying. 🔥 One killer question unlocked everything: if you burned it all down and kept only one thing, what would it be? My answer surprised me. 🎪 I'm declaring, right here, right now, that I'm doing an event. Pre-sold tickets. Cheap or free space. No Marriott ballroom deposit. We're not doing that again. 📬 If this is your kind of chaos, get on my newsletter at laurenwidrick.com for twice-monthly dispatches that are zero percent salesy and one hundred percent vibes. Your life is trying to tell you something. The breadcrumbs are always there. Just show up. Links and cool-ass people I mentioned: Super C Vitality: https://www.youtube.com/@SuperCVitality Brian LaFontaine: https://brianlafontaine.com/ Charlotte Entrepreneurs: https://charlotteentrepreneurs.com/

    17 min
  3. May 2

    Why I disappeared from the internet for two years...except the two times I went viral

    I disappeared. No explanation, no farewell post, no "I'm taking a break" announcement. Just... gone. Here's what actually happened. 🔥 I was drowning in content I was creating for an audience that wasn't growing, posting five days a week on LinkedIn like it was my religion, and getting exactly zero return on that investment. 💀 I shut down my business, went back to corporate America, and had absolutely no idea how to explain that without sounding like a fraud, a hypocrite, or someone who just faceplanted in front of everyone she'd ever inspired. 🪞 The shame spiral was real. I built a whole identity around "I escaped investment banking and run my own thing," and then whoopsie, I un-escaped. The internal reckoning was not cute. 🤬 My coach told me I wasn't "healed enough" to relaunch, I had a full rage moment about it, and then realized about six months later she was completely right and I hated that for me. 🗼 Two posts in two years broke the internet (okay, went viral). One was a selfie. One was me in front of the Eiffel Tower. Neither had bullet points or a call to action. Lesson apparently learned. 🧩 The messy middle is the content. Not the polished five-step framework. Not the answers. Just the honest, unfiltered, "I'm figuring it out too" energy that apparently hits different. 📬 If this is your kind of chaos, come hang. Sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter at laurenwidrick.com for episode recaps and real talk delivered straight to your inbox, no spam, nothing to sell, just vibes. You don't need to announce your comeback. You just need to show up.

    9 min
  4. Apr 28

    My 2026 Goals are FAILING. I feel fat, broke, and defeated...and here's what I'm doing about it.

    I started the year like a woman possessed with greatness. Right now? The only things I possess are extra pounds and credit card debt. Here's WTF happened and what I'm doing about it: 🔥 I crushed an 8-week fitness challenge, lost body fat, gained muscle, and then got on a cruise ship and completely self-destructed like I was being paid to do it 💸 My husband and I had a legendary three-day money fight last fall that somehow fixed our finances completely, and then I undid four months of progress with one spring break shopping cart 📋 I pulled up my 2026 goals document this morning and the words "not started" appear so many times I started to feel personally attacked by my own Word doc 🙏 I prayed for real clarity instead of just white-knuckling another "I'm going back to the gym five days a week" plan that would last eleven days, and what came back stopped me cold 💡 Turns out the goals crushing it in my life are the ones with God and deeper meaning baked in, and the ones in the dumpster are powered entirely by wanting to look good in shorts, which is not, it turns out, enough fuel 🎾 I am now spiritually motivated by a $50,000 backyard pickleball court and I have never been more serious about anything in my entire financial life Your goals are not dead. You have eight months, a deeper why waiting to be found, and a woman in Fort Mill who is locking in right alongside you.

    22 min
  5. Apr 26

    W2 vs. Entrepreneurship: The Unfiltered Pros, Cons, and Plot Twists Nobody Warns You About

    I left a six-figure corporate job chasing freedom, built a business from scratch for six years, and came crawling back. So which is better? W2 or Entrepreneurship? Let's break it down... 🏆 Pro of entrepreneurship nobody talks about: the meaning is unmatched. Building something that's yours, with your gifts, hits different than optimizing bank software for someone else's bottom line. 🪤 Con of entrepreneurship nobody admits: freedom is a trap if you're wired like me. Decision fatigue, zero structure, and a business that lives or dies on your emotional state is a full-time psychological experiment. 💰 Pro of W2 that I took for granted: the same number hitting your account every other Friday. I didn't appreciate it until my income became a rollercoaster tied directly to my feelings. 😬 Con of W2 that drove me out: the earning ceiling is basically a mortgage on your ambition. Two to five percent raises forever was never going to get me where I wanted to go. 🔄 Surprise pro of going back to corporate: I returned at a higher salary than when I left. Six years of entrepreneurship made me more valuable, not less hireable. 🤝 The con nobody on either side will say out loud: neither path meets all your needs. A job won't give you self-expression. A solo business won't give you safety. The answer might just be both. Stop asking which one wins. Start asking which parts of each you actually need.

    18 min

About

A podcast for millennial women balancing work, kids, ambition, reinvention, hormone plot twists, big travel plans, and the sneaking suspicion you’re capable of way more. Equal parts reality check and bestie in your pocket, here to help you stop talking about the dream and actually activate it.

You Might Also Like