This episode is sponsored by ParentAgent.

Founder Barbara Ballard spent twenty years in UX and still missed her own kid's early dismissal. So she built ParentAgent. It reads the school and activity email and hands you the list — school, camp, sports, both kids. It doesn't train on your family's data, doesn't sell it, and you can delete all of it. It’s free to start, at parentagent.io/L2.

I’m gonna say something that’s going to shock everyone listening.

I went to a three-day event. By myself. On an airplane. With a bunch of strangers.

And I really freaking enjoyed myself.

I’m painfully introverted. Usually three days of peopling leaves my social battery so drained that I’m never talking to another human again. This time I came home tired, but the good kind.

Here’s the thing. It was a room full of health tech founders who have been where you are and know the way out. Nobody bragged about their successes. We talked a whole lot about failures. No judgment.

Also, I was so hyperfocused on my to-do list in the hotel lobby that I almost walked face first into Kevin Durant. I didn’t recognize him. It was like seeing a fish on land.

Then on Ask L2: a listener runs a one-person business, hasn’t taken a week off in three years, and is starting to resent the thing they built to get free. Where do you even start?

Do as I say, not as I do. Turn your freaking phone off.

Chapters

00:00:00 Cold open

00:00:31 Welcome to You’re Not Too Much

00:00:45 Brace yourself

00:01:25 I really freaking enjoyed myself

00:02:00 Are we sure this is New Jersey?

00:02:54 Fancy food and one coconut cheesecake

00:03:47 Invigorating, not exhausting

00:04:17 People who have been where you are

00:05:01 Reentry whiplash

00:06:15 Nobody suspected I never wear shoes

00:06:40 Counting backward

00:07:45 Two hours of hyperfocus in the great room

00:09:17 Wait, strangers just start conversations?

00:10:02 A very tall man on the stairs

00:11:39 Like seeing a fish on land

00:11:57 "You saw Kevin Durant?"

00:12:42 The guests who wouldn’t check out

00:13:31 What else did I miss?

00:14:55 Ask L2: no week off in three years

00:15:54 Turn your freaking phone off

00:16:50 The false economy of never resting

00:17:43 All I want is to not be needed

00:17:58 Nothing will fall apart in one week

00:18:31 Love you, mean it

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I've been doing this podcast for 18 months, and I am still mortified that I have a podcast.

Newsflash: that has not changed.

What has changed is everything else. Last month our tiny show — me, in my office, running my mouth into a microphone — showed up on the US mental health chart one row above Sanjay Gupta's podcast. We passed 400,000 downloads. We became a network. A sponsored network.

And every single time, my brain said that's probably not gonna last. Or somebody made a mistake.

Here's the thing.

I have three exits. I run a consulting company. And at my core, I am still that 12-year-old girl who is very concerned that you're not gonna come to my birthday party.

We can be wildly successful and also that little kid. That's kinda gotta be okay.

Also in this one: You're Not In Charge of the Scale, the new show on our network from pediatrician Dr. Stephanie Walsh. Five more shows in production. Why sponsors won't change a single thing about my mouth.

And on Ask L2, a listener bought 14 project management apps and still runs the whole business off sticky notes. Is that a system?

Yes. Is it a good system? No. Does it have to be?

Chapters

00:00:00 Cold open

00:00:47 Welcome to You're Not Too Much

00:01:01 18 months in and still mortified

00:02:45 Why my brain won't let me enjoy a win

00:03:46 My producer told me not to look at the charts

00:05:33 One row above Sanjay Gupta

00:07:34 Before my brain undoes it

00:08:29 400,000 downloads

00:08:56 Wildly successful and still that 12-year-old girl

00:10:01 Big news: we're a network

00:10:36 Meet You're Not In Charge of the Scale

00:11:07 Five more shows in production

00:11:53 We're a sponsored network

00:12:43 A year ago, this was a pipe dream

00:14:16 Will sponsors change what I say?

00:16:02 Ask L2: 14 apps and a business run on sticky notes

00:19:06 Is it a system? Is it a good one?

00:20:10 It's 12:12

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Leave me a voicemail at yourenottoomuchpodcast.com/voicemail

Content note: the second half of this episode talks about sexual assault.

Senior year. AP Government. A teacher who was also a lawyer, who made us call him Doctor, and who told us in literally every class to question authority.

So one day, we did.

The test he left made no sense. We talked it through as a class, decided not to take it until he could clarify, and left him a signed note explaining why.

He came back furious. Threatened to fail all of us. Gave us a presentation on groupthink. Then assigned us two five-page essays.

It took me years to understand what that was.

They assign essays when they're embarrassed that you did what they taught you to do.

Which is why I can't stop thinking about Cornell, where a lawsuit filed this month says a woman was sexually assaulted by seven fraternity members in 2024, and that some of them were allowed to write an essay to keep their place at school. Cornell says essays weren't anybody's only consequence. I'd love to see the rest of the list.

The two stories are miles apart. The intent behind the punishment is the same.

This is cultural. It's not an accident. And an essay is not a punishment.

Since I recorded this, the Tompkins County District Attorney has reopened the criminal investigation and says the case is going to a grand jury.

00:00:00 Cold open

00:00:19 Welcome to You're Not Too Much

00:00:33 The teacher who made us call him Doctor

00:04:05 The test nobody could take

00:06:38 He came back the next day

00:08:48 About that doctorate

00:11:47 The point: Cornell and the essay

00:14:37 This is cultural, not an accident

00:15:24 Miles apart. Same intent.

00:17:52 Cornell should be ashamed

If this brings anything up for you, RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is free, confidential and open 24/7. Call 800-656-4673, text HOPE to 64673, or chat at rainn.org.

More at yourenottoomuchpodcast.com · Leave me a voicemail at yourenottoomuchpodcast.com/voicemail