STORYTIME with Lori

Real people. Real stories. Real laughs. Real lessons. 🎙️ Welcome to Storytime with Lori , where we get past the titles, résumés, highlight reels and perfectly polished profiles to meet the human being underneath. Hosted by Lori Mayer, tech and sales leader, storyteller, community builder, entrepreneur, single mom and LGBTQ advocate, STORYTIME with Lori brings together CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, athletes, creators, advocates, rising leaders and beautifully complicated humans for conversations that go where most interviews don't. We talk about leadership, career growth, women in leadership, entrepreneurship, women in tech, resilience, reinvention, personal growth, mental health, relationships, motherhood, identity, LGBTQ experiences, belonging, confidence, vulnerability, grief, recovery, second chances and starting over. Because success isn't always a straight line. Sometimes it's getting

STORYTIME with Lori is a business podcast hosted by Lori Mayer, with 37 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Lori Mayer hosts STORYTIME with Lori, a business show with 37 episodes published.

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  STORYTIME with Lori

  Cancer Got a Chapter. Not the Whole Damn Book. | Tara Akins

  Sep 29, 202642 min

  I met Tara Akins before I knew most of her story and I am glad I did. We'd crossed paths before, but it was sitting in a box at a San Diego Wave game with our mutual friend Enzo where we actually got to know each other. And somewhere between soccer, laughing, talking about life and discovering we're both Leos—which honestly explained a few things —I remember thinking, I really like this woman. Not because I knew what she'd survived. I didn't. I liked her . And that's important, because Tara has one hell of a story, but I didn't want to sit down with her and spend 45 minutes talking about cancer. So we didn't. We talked about growing up in a family that showed up physically but didn't always give her the emotional safety she needed. We talked about learning to read a room, keeping everybody happy and becoming a people-pleaser before you even realize that's what you're doing. And Tara said something that I think a lot of us learn way too fucking late: you shouldn't have to perform to earn love. Pasted text We talked about her wife. Her kids. Chosen family. Being queer. Being a mom. Working in healthcare for more than two decades and genuinely loving taking care of people. And then, yes, we talked about cancer. Tara went into the ER thinking she might have a herniated disc. She left with a completely different life. Kidney failure. Lesions throughout her bones. Multiple myeloma. Two weeks in the hospital. Treatment. Eventually a bone marrow transplant. Pasted text But here's the part that got me. She didn't really fall apart when everything was happening. She fell apart afterward . When she wasn't working. Wasn't taking care of patients. Wasn't taking care of everybody else. Wasn't being the version of Tara she'd spent years knowing how to be. She had to figure out who the hell she was when she wasn't useful. Eventually she realized: “Me being Tara is enough.” Pasted text Yeah. Sit with that one for a minute. And because Tara refuses to bullshit about any of this, there's no magical post-cancer montage here either. She went to therapy. She took medication when she needed it. She struggled with her changing body. She watched the Food Network while she was nauseous and dreamed about what she could eat when she felt better. She admits she didn't suddenly start exercising like crazy or become someone who loves drinking water. Thank God. A real person. Pasted text This is #cancer, #multiplemyeloma and #cancersurvivorship, yes. But it's also marriage, #chosenfamily, motherhood, being #lgbtq, #mentalhealth, #therapy, healthcare, #peoplepleasing, boundaries, identity and trying to figure out who the fuck you are when life changes the rules without asking permission. Somewhere near the end, two Leos started talking about roaring. Turns out a roar isn't always loud. Sometimes it's letting someone take care of you. Sometimes it's saying no. Sometimes it's admitting you're not okay. And sometimes it's finally realizing you don't have to do a damn thing to earn your place here. Tara, thank you for giving me you . ❤️ ️ Storytime with Lori — The Story Underneath the Story #storytimewithlori #tarakins #multiplemyeloma #cancersurvivor #lgbtq #chosenfamily #mentalhealth #womenshealth #patientadvocacy #womeninhealthcare #selfworth #boundaries #healing #podcast

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  STORYTIME with Lori

  Can dad's really have it all? We ask women, now let's ask Brad DeLee

  Sep 24, 202628 min

  Can working dads really have it all? What happens to career ambition, marriage, work-life balance and success when you become a father? ️ In this episode of Storytime with Lori, Brad DeLee gets brutally real about fatherhood, adoption, working dads, career and family, work-life balance, marriage, leadership and what choosing family first actually looks like when you're still ambitious as hell. Brad and his wife spent two years trying to build their family through adoption. They experienced two heartbreaking adoption attempts before the call finally came about their son, Brooks. Brad describes what kept them moving through the grief as “ruthless optimism” — the willingness to open your heart again even when opening it was exactly what allowed it to get broken. ❤️ His story takes us through adoption loss, private grief, the NICU, becoming an adoptive father and finally bringing their son home. But bringing Brooks home is where this conversation really starts. What happens when you're a working dad and suddenly that conference, flight, promotion or 5 a.m. meeting has to compete with bottles, diapers, your marriage and a tiny human who couldn't care less about your calendar? Brad talks about how fatherhood changed the way he thinks about business travel, career growth and the companies he's willing to work for. He hasn't become less ambitious. He's become much more intentional about what he's ambitious for and what he's willing to sacrifice to get there. Then we flip the damn script. Women have been asked these questions forever: How are you going to balance motherhood and your career? Who stays home when the baby is sick? What happens when your partner has the more important meeting? Can you really give 100% to your career AND your family? So I asked a dad. And Brad's answer took us into a much bigger conversation about working mothers and fathers, gender bias in the workplace, modern fatherhood, men in leadership and why we continue asking women questions we rarely ask men. His answer wasn't that we should start interrogating fathers too. Maybe we should finally stop asking working parents these ridiculous questions altogether. We also go straight at the word provider. Brad challenges something we hear constantly from successful professionals: “I'm working this hard for my family.” His response? How much of that is really about providing...and how much is ego? This episode is for working dads, working moms, adoptive parents, new parents, ambitious professionals, business leaders and anyone trying to figure out how the hell career success and family are supposed to live under the same roof. Because maybe having it all isn't actually the goal. Maybe it's knowing what deserves the most of you — and having the guts to give it that. ❤️ ️ Storytime with Lori Real people. Bigger conversations. YOUR TURN: Has becoming a parent changed what success means to you, or has it changed what you're willing to sacrifice to achieve it? Drop it in the comments. I want to hear the real answer. #WorkingDads #Fatherhood #Adoption #WorkLifeBalance #WorkingParents #StorytimeWithLori #FamilyFirst #CareerAndFamily #AdoptiveParents #Leadership #Parenthood #WorkingMoms #ModernFatherhood #CareerGrowth #Marriage

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  STORYTIME with Lori

  The Human Edge: What Success Costs & What AI Can't Replace

  Sep 24, 202640 min

  What did success cost you? I asked Dan Albaum that question about 12 minutes into our conversation, and that's pretty much when this stopped being an interview about leadership. ❤️ Dan is the author of The Giving Edge and The Impact Makers and the host of Market Impact Insights, so yes, we talk leadership. But we also talk about the stuff that doesn't usually make the leadership bio: ego, self-doubt, toxic people, the year Dan spent constantly traveling while his kids were young, and his wife Nikolett being the “jet fuel” that has carried him through some of the harder seasons. I also challenge Dan on the premise of his newest book. Giving sounds beautiful, but what happens when we give so much that we disappear? We talk boundaries, putting your own oxygen mask on first, and why asking for help might actually be one of the greatest gifts we can give someone else. Then we get into AI and something Dan calls the “sea of sameness.” If AI can help all of us become more polished, productive and seemingly perfect, maybe polish isn't the advantage anymore. Maybe our weird, messy, emotional humanity is. And then there's the empty chair. I asked Dan who he'd put beside him if he could choose one person. He chose his late father, a professor, mentor and author whose books Dan grew up seeing on the shelf. His father passed away before Dan published his first book. Today, Dan's books sit beside his dad's. Yeah… we went there. ❤️ This isn't 40 minutes about how to become a better executive. It's a conversation about ambition, family, generosity, AI, confidence, regret, grace, legacy and figuring out what actually matters while we're all still here to do something about it. This is Storytime with Lori. The story underneath the story. #storytimewithlori #danalbaum #thegivingedge #servantleadership #leadership #humanleadership #ai #futureofwork #authenticleadership #storytelling

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  STORYTIME with Lori

  Stop telling me who you are, SHOW me

  Sep 10, 202616 min

  I came into this episode fucking roaring. I’m pissed off, I’m hurt, I’m disappointed, and I’m exhausted by something I’m calling human fraud: that gap between who people tell us they are and who we actually experience them to be. Tell me you’re family? Show me when it’s inconvenient. Tell me your kid comes first? Show me when parenting screws up your plans. Tell me you believe in accountability? Show me when you’re the one who fucked up. Tell me you’re a leader? Great. I don’t need another LinkedIn post or PowerPoint with somebody climbing a fucking mountain. Show me who you are when someone challenges you, knows more than you, or tells you something your ego really doesn’t want to hear. Because here’s what I’ve realized: character gets expensive. Integrity can cost you time, money, convenience, comfort, ego and sometimes the satisfaction of being right. That’s when we find out who the fuck we really are. I go there in this one. Family. Co-parenting. Corporate America. Leadership. AI. Ego. The invisible load so many parents carry while somebody else occasionally shows up for the ribbon cutting. And yes, apparently some of us have fucking QuickBooks for all the emotional receipts we’ve collected along the way. But then this episode did something I wasn’t necessarily planning for: it turned the mirror back on me. Because I’m hurt right now, and when I’m hurt, I see things through hurt. That doesn’t erase what somebody else did. It doesn’t make shitty behavior okay. But if I’m demanding accountability from everybody else, then Lori has to own her fucking shit too. That brought me to the line that matters most: I don’t want somebody else’s lack of integrity to cost me mine. Fuck. Maybe that’s the whole lesson. I don’t need perfect people. I fucking love imperfect people. Give me messy. Give me “I don’t know.” Give me “I was wrong.” Give me “I got scared.” Give me “I handled that like an asshole.” What I’m done with is the performance. I want your words and your behavior to fucking recognize each other. ️ So here’s my challenge: listen before you decide who you think this episode is about. And before you send it to the ex, boss, parent, sibling, friend or whoever immediately popped into your head, ask yourself the harder fucking question: Where did I hear myself? Then do something about it. And if this conversation hits you somewhere uncomfortable, share it with someone brave enough to look in the mirror with you. #StorytimeWithLori #HumanFraud #Authenticity #Accountability #Integrity #Leadership #RealTalk #OwnYourShit #PersonalGrowth #Podcasting

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  STORYTIME with Lori

  RUN TOWARD HER: Before the World Tells Them Who to Become

  Sep 8, 202642 min

  Reagan and Riley Cullivan are 19 years old, sisters, athletes and headed to UC Davis to play Division I softball together. They've spent most of their lives doing many of the same things, surrounded by many of the same people and hearing themselves referred to simply as “the twins.” And while that's part of their story, I wanted to know who Reagan and Riley are when you pull those labels apart. We talked about something women of every age understand: comparison. What happens when someone you love gets the thing you wanted too? Reagan and Riley were surprisingly candid about being happy for one another while sometimes feeling frustrated with themselves, especially on the softball field. We talked about learning to recognize their different strengths, finding their own identities and understanding that loving another woman doesn't require making yourself smaller. Then we went beyond softball. We talked about recruiting pressure and the point when something you love starts feeling like a job. We talked about the enormous sacrifice parents make behind the scenes, their dreams of careers in medicine, the lives they want outside of work and sports, and why these two are determined to actually live a little along the way. What I loved most, though, was getting to talk to them now. I interview plenty of people who can look back over decades and explain exactly how they became who they are. Reagan and Riley can't do that yet, because they're still becoming. So instead of giving them another lecture from an older woman who thinks she knows some shit, I asked them what we could learn from them . Turns out, quite a bit. This one is about sisters, but it's also about women. Her success isn't evidence of your failure, and her lane doesn't have to look anything like yours. Cheer for her. Make room for her. And when it's her turn to cross home plate, run toward her. ️ Storytime with Lori

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