The Gap, The Gut Punch, & The Comeback

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Season One of Airing Out Your Vagina didn’t end the way it was supposed to.  There was no finale. No goodbye. No explanation.  Just a casual “see you next week”… followed by silence.

Until now…

In this raw and unfiltered Season Two kickoff episode, I’m addressing the elephant in the room head on and sharing the very expensive, very painful, and very real lessons I learned navigating entrepreneurship, bad business, broken trust, and what happens when the people you believed were in your corner… weren’t.

This episode is about rebuilding after disappointment. About losing access to my own podcast platform and refusing to let that become the end of the story. About intuition, resilience, red flags, women who truly support other women… and women who only pretend to. 

It’s about reclaiming my voice, my platform, my power, and this next chapter — publicly.

And most importantly? It’s about proving that being knocked down does NOT mean you’re out.

Season Two is deeper, bolder, less filtered, and built differently. So if you believe in truth over comfort, growth over perfection, and rebuilding louder after life tries to humble you…

Buckle up buttercup. We’re just getting started.

 Available on Spotify, YouTube, and my NEW Apple Podcasts account. Signed books, Allie-Vention calls, speaking inquiries, and more at my website. Follow, subscribe, share, and invite another woman into the conversation.

Because growth starts with honesty… and honesty sometimes requires airing things out.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to season two of airing out your vagina, where honesty comes first, comfort comes last, and growth is non-negotiable. So I'm Allie, and today we're not easing back into it. We're addressing the elephant in the room, and that has been sitting on my chest for the last several months, really since February. Season one didn't end the way it was supposed to. There was no finale, no wrap-up, no goodbye. And trust me, that didn't sit well with me either. And I don't do avoidance. If we're here, we're doing honesty. Not defensive, but grounded, not bitter, just honest. And not reactionary in the moment, but responsive in the present. Because what happened shouldn't have happened. But with some time passing, I've given grace and I've realized that having difficult conversations without taking them personally and the ability to respond thoughtfully, not in full-on masculine, defensive, reactionary energy, that comes with experience. And if you haven't had your ass kicked by life yet and had to manage through that sort of thing in order to come out the other side intact, at least to some degree, you just don't know what you don't know. I had it all mapped out. And then life and bad business had other plans. After more than a handful of pretty serious and really thematic kind of mess-ups, I thought we'd sit down and have a chat over coffee, solidify a plan forward, and move on. But that wasn't the case. She had other plans. I had scheduled the recording of a really kind of celebratory, celebratory season finale. Um, one with moments of impact, impactful takeaways, season two teasers, and really most importantly to me, a message of genuine gratitude for the support and the buy-in and the love shown to me as a brand new podcaster, which by the way, still sounds weird. I mean, I thought author sounded weird. And then I went and added podcaster to the mix, and here we are. But sadly, despite being scheduled, um, I was not given the opportunity to record that and finish off my first season. I was left without a season one finale. Um, and sadly instead, it just kind of ended. It was a hey, see you next week at the end of an episode, and then just radio silence. Well, not anymore. I don't know if any of y'all saw the 156th, pardon me, 152nd run of the Kentucky Derby. But if not, go watch it. I didn't realize the reminder I had needed so desperately that was provided by none other than Golden Tempo. Those of you that know me know that one of my favorite lines that I use all the time is go ahead, underestimate me. That'll be fun. And I realized something in watching Golden Tempo go from dead last, dead ass last to winning the race. Anyone or everyone, for that matter, can count you down. But the only person that can count you out is you. And I may be down, you may have knocked me down, but I ain't out. So after months of advocating for access and provision to my intellectual property and content, I still sadly have been unable to get access back to my podcast via the Apple iTunes account, um, which was apparently both set up that and my feed under the personal cell phone and Apple computer of a college marketing intern that was working at the marketing firm I used. I could prove ownership, but with Apple, it's all about the trusted phone number. And since it's not my phone number and the marketing folks won't give me the phone number, um, I can't do anything about it. It is kind of funny to me though, when I think about the hundreds of authentication codes it's probably received and annoyed the hell out of them. But in the end, it is what it is. So I've resigned myself to starting that piece over on a different platform on a new account. And that's gonna be it. My podcast, my content, my title, my name, but the podcast RSS feed that holds it also all together, um, is something that I don't have access to. So I'm remain locked out. And I'm not gonna lie, I had some really frustrated, anger-filled, what the fuck is wrong with this person and how the fuck did I let this happen again? Um, in regards to business betrayal. But in the end, it is what it is. And talk about an entrepreneurial reality check. I've always had side hustles and kind of that entrepreneurial mindset, but I realize now I didn't know what I didn't know. And I absolutely trusted the wrong person. So if some of this seems like a little bit of TMI, the reason behind the details I'm sharing is this. When I wrote and published my book, I said that if it helped one woman escape from some of the same missteps and unbelievable, painful life lessons that I had had to navigate or helped them feel a little less batshit crazy, then mission accomplished. And so I thought about it and I was like, well, why would this and lessons I've learned as part of my second act be any different? Why would I not share the gut-wrenching lessons and the painful experiences in regard to this chapter of my life, just like I did the others? Because in the end, again, if it helps somebody, mission accomplished. I invested tens of thousands of dollars from savings that I'm living off of while I'm building this next chapter of my life. I poured my resources into what was supposed to be a we grow together marketing arrangement. As I built my dream business and she built hers. But it turned out to be, really, if we're being honest, nothing but another really very painful experience, a very expensive lesson. Because in the end, what you realize is welcome to the real world, where not everyone who claps for you is actually in your corner. I see now it was a misaligned partnership at best from the beginning. I had to own that. And I had to once again acknowledge the fact that I had ignored my intuition and even a handful of warnings from people familiar with her in her work. And I did that despite having made that mistake in the past. I hadn't learned the lesson. But now, what I have learned is that when I do see it, when I do finally see the truth in the thing, or the tower moment happens, or I get the message and everything crumbles. Once I do see it, there is no unseeing it. It just is what it is. And so after lots of money invested with zero financial return, loss of my own podcast from that perspective, um, and having to build a new account, I was initially brokenhearted. Yeah, I do have a beautiful brand that they brought to life for my vision. And with that foundation, here we go. Forward momentum. Lessons learned are plentiful, and I want to share a couple of those. One, not everyone who claims to be a woman supportive of other women is really that at all. Some people say they see your vision, but really only see your paid invoice monthly. And sometimes you don't know which one you're dealing with until, like in this case, it's way too late. Listen to your intuition and those whispers before they're screaming at you and the tower moment happens. Here we adapt, we pivot, and we keep it moving. We don't quit. Like Golden Tempo, we may be down, but we are not out. If you watched me on YouTube or Spotify, just keep doing on or going on and doing what you're doing, watching it there. If you had found me and you were watching on iTunes, then you're gonna have to resubscribe to the new account. Same name, same podcast, new account. Gotta love tech. And I guess the bad actors, except I don't really think we have to love them. Here's the lesson. When it's yours and you own it and it comes from you, you can build it again without them. That's another good lesson. Because when you think about it, when it's your ideas and it's your knowledge and it's your expertise at the foundation of something, you can always build it again. The people that stole it from you or muffled it or tried to silence you or take it away, they can't. Because in the end, it was yours to begin with. If you ordered the audiobook, I apologize for the editing I paid for there, that was clearly never done. Um, there I am out on Audible for the whole world to download and listen and see, and you hear me doing and saying things like, oh, literally growling and saying, like, I hate this chapter, or oh my God. Here's the thing: your girl never promised to be perfect. And I'm actually a self-declared hot mess express. So although the money I spent on editing was wasted, the audio version, the audio book itself, it is as real and raw and authentically me as the book itself. And so I decided it stands. And now for the fun part, the reclaim. So what's new since the change? My website actually works now. You can actually click on, pay for, and buy a signed copy of my book and have it shipped to you. You can complete a questionnaire and book an Alivention call. I've more than quadrupled my following on social media platforms organically with zero paid ads. I've booked speaking engagements, I've completed several healthcare consultant gigs, and I'm now just weeks away from launching the latest cohort in my virtual women's leadership course, The Unfiltered Leader. Eight weeks to blow up the bullshit, reclaim your power, and lead the way they you always knew you could. All of this since the dissolution of the arrangement that I'd paid tens of thousands of dollars for, that had promised much of this and delivered none of it. And now, buckle up Buttercup, season two of the podcast, airing out your vagina. What you won't see is the branded fuchsia signature neon sign that's behind me in every other episode that said, Well-behaved well women seldom make history. Because I understood it had been a gift for me for my book launch party back in 2025. But she retained it as personal property in the split up. No brand appropriate teal couch, pulled away from the wall and positioned perfectly on recording day, and the high-quality audio and video that the talented photographer and the UTEP marketing intern did, all that's gone. What you will see is me. A woman who will not be taken advantage of or pushed down and out by anyone ever. A woman who isn't afraid of powering through her own mistakes and owning them and learning the lessons and sharing them openly with others, but also doesn't hold back on calling bullshit on people's bullshit when it needs to be called out. A real woman who actually and adamantly supports other real women. And instead of a neon sign, a Hal Marcus piece gifted to me by he and Pat. When I shared with them that I was looking at starting this new path before I'd even published Airing Out Your Vagina, being a real woman in an unreal world. I shared being afraid that it could blow up the career I'd spent decades building. And I remember Hal telling me that if that's what happened, it was because the path I was on was not the path I was supposed to be on in the first place. He gifted me this signed piece. It's called the Harlequin Dancers. And he gave it to me soon after that conversation, saying that he felt like my impact with my focus on really leading the way for women to learn how to support other women was so much bigger than I even realized. And that when he looked at this piece, it reminded him of the mission-driven path I had chosen regarding that subject matter, in spite of a very financially lucrative career I had already built. So season two of the podcast, this is mine. It's my voice, it's my message, it's my platform recorded by me for you in my home. No middleman, no gatekeeping, no confusion, and no more risk of losing it all because of someone else's dysregulated nervous system and lack of self-awareness. One thing about me, you can knock me down, but I will always get back up. Resilient as a cockroach, remember? So stronger, smarter, and way less trusting, but full of support. And I'm grateful for the lessons learned despite the pain and the financial hardship. I'm grateful for the photographer and the college marketing student because honestly, they're the ones that pushed me to do a podcast in the first place. I thought they were nuts and they did a hell of a job with it while they were doing it. And honestly, if you're listening, guys, and we both know you are, it was great. It was a good ride until it wasn't, and I wish you both the best. Although I won't pretend I don't wish at least one of the two of you would have given me the codes I needed to regain access to my own stuff. That would have taken courage and it would have taken you stepping out of a comfort zone, so I get it. But what I am most grateful for are all of you. Those who listened to season one and hung around and are tuning in as I work to relaunch with season two. Those who defend me when the keyboard warriors attack from the cheap seats in the comment section. Man, those comments can be nasty. A lot of them last week happened to be geared towards my weight, which is a sensitive subject, and I appreciate the defense. Those who interact with me and share my content so that other people that need to see it are exposed to it. I'm so grateful. Because in the end, support shouldn't disappear when things get hard. It should show up louder. So what's coming in season two? More truth, more uncomfortable conversations, more behind the scenes leadership life and entrepreneurship info. Season two is going to go deeper, bolder, and a whole lot less filtered. I've got guests on subjects ranging from mental health, authentic leadership, a variety of women's topics, and even some very practical magic. Here's the thing: it's not that closure is always given. Sometimes you create it. So closure for me is this episode, me taking my power back publicly. I didn't lose anything other than a shit ton of money and my iTunes podcast account and the feed. But what I can do is make all of those things again. And what I learned through this was priceless. I learned exactly who and what doesn't come with me into my next chapter. So if you're still here, if you're writing with me, and if you believe in truth over comfort, stay tuned because growth starts with honesty. And honesty sometimes requires airing things out. So I'll see you on episode one of season two.