The Lisa Show

Chaos is inevitable. Tires go flat, in-laws show up unannounced, and kids grow up unbelievably fast. What does inner peace even look like when life never slows down? Hailey Smith joins Lisa for a conversation about self-love, examining expectations, and implementing practices that promote real peace. Hailey Smith attended Brigham Young University and received a BFA in Acting. She is a professional actress, improviser and producer, and has appeared in numerous stage, film, and TV productions. She co-founded the musical theater improv troupe The Thrillionaires and starred in all three seasons of BYUtv’s musical improv show “Show Offs.” She co-produced and acted in the films “Once I Was a Beehive” and “Once I Was Engaged.” She also appeared in “Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out,” which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Hailey has two adult children and two teens and lives in Colorado with her husband, kids and dog. Steven Kapp Perry is the host of "In Good Faith" where he talks with believers from all walks of faith—Catholic and Episcopalian, Buddhist and Baptist, Jewish and Hindu, Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Latter-day Saint— sharing their personal experience with the sacred and the divine.

Interactions with teens are often filled with one-word answers, resistance, and even frustration. But there are some simple ways that we can foster trust and connect with the teens in our life. Guest Kirby Heyborne joins Lisa in the studio and shares some tips he calls "the 3 L's" for working with youth. #thelisashow #workingwithteens #parentingteens #BYUradio #teenlifeskills #momlife #youthempowerment #youthministry #youthleadership

Should you keep paying for those dance lessons? How do you help your child discover interests and skills that bring them lifelong satisfaction without pushing them too hard? How do you support your kids' passions while setting them up to succeed? Lisa and the Council of Moms (Teniesha Williams, Allison Dayton, and Carrie Ann Rhodes) discuss the ups and downs of extra-curriculars and the balance of being "well-rounded."

The Council of Moms answers "How do I help my kids develop a relationship with God and religion?" The conversation explores various approaches to fostering faith and spirituality in children, sharing insights and meaningful experiences.

Lisa and her council of experienced moms tackle a crucial question from a listener: "How can I change my parenting style as my children get older?" The discussion delves into practical strategies for adapting to the evolving needs of your growing children by offering valuable advice and personal anecdotes. Tune in to gain fresh perspectives on nurturing your kids through their different life stages.

In this special episode Lisa and her council of moms, comprised of three therapists who recently graduated, explore the question: "How can I create my second act as a mom?". This special council embarked on their journey to become therapists after years of motherhood. This episode delves into their inspiring stories of returning to school and redefining what they want in life. Tune in to hear their insights on pursuing new passions and creating a fulfilling second act.

Service creates ripples in the world that extend further than we may realize. And sometimes, those ripples may even come back to bless us. In today's episode, Lisa explores the the ripple effect service can have with some incredible stories about the impact one person's efforts can have on others down the line.

Children need encouragement to grow and get out of their comfort zone. Join Lisa and her Council as they share ways to motivate, nurture, and inspire their children to grow and blossom into the well rounded adults the moms know they can be.

How do we get our kids involved in service and social impact? In this episode of Doing Good Better, Ken Larsen, Bethany Brady Spalding, Jill Piacitelli, and Nathan Holley talk about how to capitalize on your kids' interests, how to create a family culture of service, and how to teach kids the importance of not only giving but receiving. #TheLisaShow #doinggood #momlife #podcast #socialimpact #benefitsofservice #servingothers #servicewithkids #raisingkindkids #raisingkindhumans

Mental health is a very serious issue that all parents should be aware of. This week Lisa and her Council of Moms talk about ways to bring up mental health with your kids, how to help improve their mental health, and being open about your own mental state with those around you.

There are distinct physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits that come from serving others. And while we don't usually weigh the perks of being selfless, it's important to know that helping others is just as good for you as it can be for those you serve. In this episode of The Lisa Show, Dr. Steven Trzeciak presents a surprising biological benefit for serving others. Dale Hull of Neuroworx and Ken Larson talk about how serving others helped them to see their pasts in a new way. And BYU philosophy professor, Ryan Davis, explains why helping others doesn't have to be hard or uncomfortable to count. #TheLisaShow #doinggood #moms #podcast #socialimpact #benefitsofservice #servingothers

Lisa and her Council of Moms come from all walks of life and have lived through all phases of finances from broke and in school to supporting a family. This week they council on how they can inspire their children to be grateful for whatever financial situation they are in as well as making friends with people from all tax brackets.

Studies show that we have nine empathy opportunities every day, but sometimes our empathy tanks feel empty. Burnout is real. Dr. Stephen Trzeciak, Chief of Medicine at Cooper University Health Care, has studied the effect of burnout and has coined the term "compassionomics." In this episode, Lisa speaks with Dr. Trzeciak about the science of compassionomics,. She also talks with Josh Robinson of the Food and Care Coaltion and Teresa Helm of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation in exploring some simple solutions that can help us be the compassionate, resilient people we want to be. Dr. Stephen Trzeciak is the Edward D. Viner Endowed Chief of Medicine at Cooper University Health Care. Josh Robinson is the operations manager at Food and Care Coaltion. Teresa Helm is the Survivor Services Coordinator at NCOSE, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. If you or anyone you know is struggling with sexual exploitation, please call 202-393-7245 to get in contact with NCOSE.

Tough times are an inevitable part of life, but even in these tough times moms want their children to have joy. Join Lisa and her Council of Moms as they discuss finding and creating joy for their children, mom acting skills, the importance of a sense of humor and finding teaching moments while learning how to heal.

You made the donation, but where is it really going? Is it feeding starving children or furnishing a CEO's vacation home? Lisa talks with Aaron Miller and Jill Piacitelli from the Ballard Center and Chris Yadon from Saprea about what to look for in a charity, and how to know if that charity really makes a difference. #thelisashow #lisavalentineclark #vettingcharities #ballardcenter #saprea #charitablegiving #charitabledonations

Our children are suffering body image insecurities at younger and younger ages. Join Lisa and the Council of Moms as they exchange tips, tricks, and personal stories on what it means to be a mom and how to help our children have healthier perspectives on their bodies. #councilofmoms #bodyimage #parenting #parentingteens #ldsparenting #thelisashow #lisavalentineclark

In trying to fix the cholera and dysentery epidemics in Bangladesh in the 1970s, the country dug 10 million wells—only to discover that most of those wells were producing arsenic-laced water. Social problems can be complex, and we don’t want to make them worse. Jill Piacitelli from the Ballard Center tells us that “killing our darlings” is an important step to helping. Brent Crane from the Food and Care Coalition shares a story about the power of collaboration. And Tawna Fowler and Brett Caywood from Rising Star Outreach show us how to put our mission above our egos to do what actually helps.

How do you make a difference in the world when you're low on time and money? Lisa and The Council of Moms (Emilie Campbell, Brandalee Bluth Streeter, and Gina James) discuss how to lift where you stand, what kind of language to use with your kids when explain difficult situations in the world, and what it looks like to have actionable compassion.

75 years ago, parents faced a deadly threat to their children which, today, most people never have to think about. Lisa and Aaron Miller dive behind the scenes of the March of Dimes, an effort fueled by ordinary people who collectively changed the world and saved millions of lives. Bethany Brady Spalding shares the movement in her community that stemmed from a conversation with her kindergartener about candy. Lisa identifies six different types of helpers (because who doesn't love a personality test) and ordinary people making an extraordinary impact in the world around them.

Whether our kids are two or twenty-two, conflict is a normal part of family life. How do we make sure our relationships of love grow through these inevitable clashes, especially for kids? Lisa, Marlie, Kylie, and Brandalee explore the way conflict shows up in different stages of life, and in various scenarios-- in blended families, between spouses when kids are listening in, and with kids in the middle of those developmentally appropriate (but still awkward) transitions into higher autonomy and self-discovery.

Have you ever avoided eye contact with someone holding a cardboard sign? Or felt a twinge as you skipped a YouTube ad asking for charitable donations? Help is needed everywhere, and good people want to help. But those good intentions can quickly turn to paralysis, overwhelm, and a lingering sense of shame for not "doing more." Meanwhile, experts in helping (that's a real thing!) know that making the world a better place isn't compatible with shame. Lisa tours The Other Side Academy to learn how a few individuals regularly beat the odds and make an extraordinary impact in their community. Aaron Miller from the Ballard Center for Social Impact shares how falling in love with a problem holds the key to transforming that old, familiar, paralyzing guilt into hope, and how anyone can empower themselves to make a difference in the world by making a switch: from doomscrolling to doing good better.

Do you ever see your teenager making bad choices, and you have to grit your teeth to keep from saying something? We don’t want to be helicopter moms, but we also don’t want our kids to ruin their lives. As parents, it can be a tricky balance to let our kids fail and learn from their mistakes while keeping them out of serious trouble. Lisa joins Lindsay Clark, Amy Sunderland, and Cassie Barger for a Council of Moms about when to let our children mess up and when to intervene.

Lisa sits down with Scott Martin, who shares his journey redefining himself and finding purpose after a dramatic illness reduced his mobility and upended his life. They discuss the courage to start over, what resilience looks like, and how to learn from various kinds of new beginnings in life.

How do I get my spouse to help out around the house more? How do I manage my kids better? The answer is connection! Join Lisa and guests Heather Frazier, Lavonne Wells, and Melanie Call as they discuss how to better connect with your children and spouse, as well as how to take personal responsibility for that connection.

Join Lisa for a candid conversation about sacrifice, gratitude, and reshaping family visions when life's path takes unexpected turns. Our special guests Sanjay and Rahul from the Area 51 podcast share a laughter-filled perspective on navigating the challenges of immigration.

The eternal, unavoidable struggle of parenting: after planning out a week of meals, making sure they're nutritious, finding foods that the kids will like, grocery shopping, and mustering the energy every day to actually make those meals, the end of the week rolls around and we have to start all over again. How do we keep up? How do we keep pushing the boulder of feeding a family up the hill week after week, especially if we don't particularly love cooking in the first place? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by friends and fellow moms Amy Gifford, Clarissa Greenwalt, and Cassie Barger to talk about their advice and experiences.

Entering a marriage with kids on one or both sides can be a scary and difficult thing. How does one go about it anyway? Turns out a little bit of support, communication, and understanding can go a long way. In this episode Brittney Phillips shares her story of how she blended her family following her marriage, and all the pains, complexities, and joys that came with it.

For a mom who decides they are ready to go back to work after being home with the kids for a long time, there can be a lot of complex emotions involved with that transition. They might think, will this hurt my relationship with my kids? Will they think I'm a bad mom? Am I being selfish? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa sits down with friends and fellow moms Clarissa Greenwall, Lindsay Clark, and Alison Faulkner to discuss what experiences and advice they have for people in this situation.

After a devastating loss, starting over might be the last thing we want to do. What does it even mean to “start over” after the death of a loved one? When Dr. Sonya Coley Pitchford lost her 34-year-old daughter, Tanieka, to a sudden heart attack, her whole life changed. In this episode, Dr. Pitchford shares how she managed to keep going and eventually find hope after a crushing loss.

Moving to a new place presents both new opportunities and new challenges. How can we set our kids up to thrive during this time of transition? In this episode of the Lisa Show’s Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Cree Taylor, Alison Faulkoner, and Anna Ek for a conversation about helping children through a big move.

In the midst of the 2008 housing crisis, KariAnn Parker and her husband made the hard decision to look their financial situation in the face. This decision kicked off a years-long process of evaluating their priorities and making hard choices as a family. KariAnn Parker joins Lisa for a conversation about sacrifice, gratitude, and redefining your vision for your family when things don’t go according to plan.

When financial struggle comes, there are few conversations more difficult to have than having to tell your kids about how their life is going to have to change in order to make ends meet. As parents we don't want our kids to have to bear the burdens of adult life, but we also don't want them to be surprised or hurt when we aren't able to afford things that we used to. In this episode of the Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa talks with friends and moms Anna Ek, Trina Celeste, and Cree Taylor about what they've been through and how they recommend approaching these tough conversations.

For many women, there is no version of starting over more difficult and overwhelming than unexpected childlessness. Many plan on being parents, and even base their identity around that plan. So when unforeseen circumstances make having children impossible, they have to start over--not just with their life plans, but with how they see themselves. In this episode of the Lisa Show's series on Starting Over, Lisa talks with Sarah Roberts about her journey.

As a parent, it can feel like every waking moment is dedicated to taking care of the people who need our help. There's always another diaper change, or soccer practice, or choir recital, or meal to make, and there doesn't seem to be any time left over for ourselves. So how can we make and keep friendships with anyone other than our partner? In this episode of the Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by friends and fellow moms Liv Mendoza, Whitney Call, and Allison Dayton to talk about their experiences and best advice.

For many full-time parents, starting a family may have cut short plans to finish a degree or pursue the career we'd always thought about. Or maybe, we realize decades later that the career we chose isn't what we want to do anymore. Whatever the reason, going back to school later in life can be intimidating, unknown, and downright expensive. So what does starting over look like as a non-conventional student? In this episode of The Lisa Show' series on Starting Over, Lisa talks with Morag Kawasaki about her story of pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher.

We're constantly surrounded by horrible, heartbreaking news from around the world. There is so much war and cruelty that it's hard to avoid. But for our kids, their often hearing about these things without being old enough to truly understand what they're hearing about. And not to mention everything else a kid is dealing with while trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. So as parents, how to we broach these complicated conversations? And how much should we say? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Brittney Phillips, Shari Lyon, and Allison Dayton to talk about their experiences and best advice.

When Ashlynn Mitchell’s husband came to her and said he wanted a divorce, her whole life turned upside down. Suddenly her goals, dreams, and hopes for the future changed, and she didn’t know if she could go on alone. Ashlynn shares how reevaluating her life goals, rebuilding trust in herself, and nourishing self-love helped her along on her long journey of reconnecting with herself after divorce.

As parents it's not uncommon that we spend so much time focusing on taking care of the kids, putting food on the table, and making sure life doesn't fall apart at the seams that we don't find time to work on our own social circles. So what do we do when the kids are becoming independent and we have a little more free time, but it's been years since we tried making a new friend? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Heather Frazier, Melanie Call, and Whitney Call about their experiences and advice.

In November 2008, Lara Love Hardin was arrested in her suburban home. Her habit of pretending to have a perfect life had led to an opioid addiction, which had imploded her life completely. Now, she’s a bestselling author who has worked with Oprah and the Dalai Lama—and most importantly, she no longer has to pretend. In this episode, Lara shares her story of starting over after drug addiction.

In this week's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Lavonne Wells, Shari Lyon, and Brittney Phillips to answer a listener-submitted question: What do you do when your teenager doesn't seem to care about school, and you can tell they're heading down a difficult path?

Whether we like it or not, almost all of us will find ourselves in the position of wanting to start looking for love at some point in our lives. Maybe it's after a summer fling as teenagers, or maybe it's after the end of a decades-long marriage. For Shannon Jenkins, host of the Starting Over podcast, it was after deciding to leave a toxic marriage with her young son. In this first episode of The Lisa Show's new series on Starting Over, Lisa talks to Shannon about how so much of starting over for her was less about finding a new romantic partner, and more about figuring out how she felt about herself.

In this holiday edition of the Council of Moms, Lisa sits down with Kacy Faulconer, Gina James, and Katie Craig about intentionally creating and maintaining holiday traditions. They discuss Christmas music, making memories, and family time.

Whether we hear about it or not, lots of parents are very judgmental of the way other people raise their kids. We're all trying our best, but that looks so different from family to family, and it can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone else is doing it wrong. So what do we do when someone criticizes the way we're parenting? And how can we be better at not doing that ourselves? Lisa chats with Brooke Hoopes, Emilie Campbell, and Gina James about their experiences and advice.

In the last episode of The Lisa Show’s caregiving series, Lisa explores a topic inseparable from caregiving: spirituality. How does caregiving change relationships with God? How can we reconcile faith in a loving God with the suffering of our loved ones? Lisa talks with Sheila Welch, Kara Ryska, David Schenck, Aisha Adkins, and Jillian Benfield about how caregiving can reveal miracles and change our vision.

Lisa is joined by Jillian Benfield and Usha Tewari in a conversation about how to find community, how to build community, and how to leverage the strength of a community to make life better for all caregivers. Featuring Billie Short, Elizabeth Miller, and Shana Jones.

We’re putting the finishing touches on the last two episodes of our Caregiving series, and we want to make sure we’re telling those stories exactly the way they deserve to be told. So while we’re making our final edits, we wanted to share with you a special caregiving story from our sister podcast, Constant Wonder. Prem Jauhar was a world-class agricultural scientist—an inspiration to his son Sandeep, our guest, who became a cardiologist. When the elderly father Prem started behaving oddly, Sandeep and his two siblings grew frustrated and confused. It’s a classic family story of grown children struggling together to help a parent beset with Alzheimer’s. A beautiful father-son bond, established early on when young Sandeep would help Prem tend his beloved garden, manifests itself at the end of Prem’s life in tender exchanges between a now childlike father and a grieving son. Everyone will have something profound to gain from this episode of Constant Wonder. Guest: Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, Director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Hospital; author of "My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's"; contributing opinion writer for The New York Times

Every year it feels like there's a new kind of phone, a new social media app, or some new tech that our kids want to try. And as parents, it can feel impossible to keep up with. What is safe for them to use, and at what age? Is it even possible to protect them from the harmful influences on the internet? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Gina James, Emilie Starr, and Julie Taylor about their experiences. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook.

Any caregiver will tell you that maybe one of the harshest realities of taking care of another person is just how much time you spend dealing with the "system"--meaning meeting with doctors, making calls to insurance providers, emailing pharmacies, working with government programs, and handling all of the logistical pieces necessary to support someone who needs it. It can become a full-time job in and of itself, and at times that "system" can feel cold and uncaring towards the people it's ostensibly supposed to be helping. So what can we do to better navigate the logistical side of caregiving? Lisa talks with life coach Lauren Lowery, author Jillian Benfield, and director of Development for Remedy Alpine Amy Bushatz--all caregivers themselves--about how we can better advocate for ourselves during difficult conversations.

As parents, it seems like every year there's a new trend that becomes the absolute priority for parents. One year, it's cleanliness. The next, is early literacy. The next, it's formula, or not formula, or whatever the current conversations says? Who can keep up? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Jeanette Bennett, Brooke Hoopes, and Amy Hackworth join Lisa to discuss the things that they wish they'd prioritized with their kids--be it empathy, mental health, education, or what have you.

Many caregivers feel the approach of inevitable change to their role, and an "end" to the way life looks and feels right now. Lisa is joined by Emilie Campbell, Richard Lui, Barbara Karnes, Elizabeth Miller, and John Sovec to explore the nuances of transitioning to the "after" stage of caregiving, whether that looks like empty nesting, transitioning to residential care, or becoming a "Godspeed Caregiver" following the death of a loved one receiving hospice care.