The Lauren Widrick Podcast

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 [https://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/

My TEDx Talk Idea: Goals are stupid and don't work. Here's the Anti-Goals system that does.

I've been sitting on a big idea, and instead of keeping it to myself, I workshopped the whole thing on the podcast. Out loud. Unfiltered. Half-baked and all. 🎯 92% of goals are dead within two weeks. A Harvard study said it. I'm just here to stop pretending otherwise. 🏃 I'm pitching a totally anti-goal system built on sprints, and the methodology I stole from software developers might be the thing that actually changes your life. ✨ Forget discipline and consistency. What if your plan only had to survive the next seven days? 🧠 I think I'm building an app. I also think I might be losing my mind. Possibly both. 📞 One brown spot on my cheek, one phone call, and suddenly I understand how micro wins turn into a completely different life. 🎤 I applied to do a TED Talk. Okay, I said I MIGHT apply. I'm dragging a friend into it either way. 📬 If this kind of messy, in-progress thinking is your thing, you'll love my twice-monthly newsletter over at laurenwidrick.com [https://laurenwidrick.com/]. The whole point of this podcast is vulnerability and building out loud. So there you go.

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 [https://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.

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.

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.